


And I Am There

by tigerlady (shetiger)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Religious, M/M, Movie - Stigmata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-07
Updated: 2010-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-14 12:04:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetiger/pseuds/tigerlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's vocation takes him all over the world in search of miracles. He doesn't expect to find much when he's sent to interview Rodney McKay, a man apparently afflicted with the Stigmata--the wounds of Christ. Instead, he finds much, much more than he ever dreamed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Am There

**Author's Note:**

> An Atlantis fusion with the movie Stigmata. You can think of this as an unauthorized novelization of the movie script, with it modified to fit the Atlantis characters. Dialogue heavily drawn from that of Tom Lazarus and Rick Ramage; if it's a religious explanation, 'original' characters speaking, or a plot-turning conversation, it's probably theirs. However, I've added a lot of my own stuff, so it's not simply copy and paste.
> 
> Contains religious elements that some may find blasphemous. Also contains minor Rodney/OMC, past Rodney/Elizabeth.

_Belo Quinto, southeastern Brazil_

Worshipers flowed through the streets of Belo Quinto, their hope a heavy weight against the brightness of the sun and the overpowering scent of tropical flowers. John Sheppard walked amongst them, unobtrusive in jeans and a black jacket. He looked about himself curiously, but his manner was not that of a tourist: his gaze was measured, probing, in search of specific things. The river of pilgrims moved in an unstoppable current towards the church, and he followed.

A young man in a traditional black frock greeted him in the vestibule. "Are you the investigator?" Brother Antonio asked. The hope and excitement in his voice was that of a man who wanted to share the joy of his faith with the world.

"Yes." Sheppard shook the brother's hand, not giving him anything more. His job was to see, to record, not to offer promises.

"Thank God." Brother Antonio's words were heartfelt, not blasphemous in the least.

Sheppard's eyes were drawn past the heads of the penitents to a snow white statue of the Virgin Mother. A dark red liquid streamed from her eyes and down her cheeks. "Who's in charge here?"

"The Father was," Brother Antonio explained, pointing to an open coffin. A body lay in state, an old man garbed in a simple priest's cassock. Layers of snowy gardenias filled every empty space. The body seemed untouched by decay, and Sheppard wondered how long it had been since the old man had died.

Before he could ask, a strong breeze rose from nowhere, guttering through the rows upon rows of mismatched candles, stirring the hairs on the back of his neck. A flock of doves ascended in its wake, creating a thunderstorm of beating wings and raining white feathers across the church floor.

The choked flames of the candles returned to life.

"Look! How much proof do you need?" a man yelled from the gathered masses, his voice shattering the stillness that had taken hold.

Sheppard didn't bother to respond. He got out his kit and began taking measurements. Checking for mechanical vibrations. Testing the solidity of the base. Taking Q-tip swabbings of the red tears.

"Has the statue been moved from the church at any time?" he asked as he worked.

"No," Brother Antonio answered. "The villagers loved the Father. The statue started crying when he died. The same day the doves came back."

"The tears of the Mother are the blood of Christ," a woman called from the crowd. They were all believers here.

Sheppard knelt to pack away the sample, taking the opportunity to utter quiet warning. "I suggest you clear the church. I have to crate up the statue."

"Crate it up?"

"Yes," Sheppard said, gathering up his camera and studying the statue for the best angles.

"No, no," Antonio said, alarmed. "The Father would never have allowed that."

The flash of the camera was bright and loud, startling sharp as Sheppard clicked through shot after shot. The electric whine drowned out the murmur of the people, and the quick little steps of a young boy as he grabbed a souvenir from the coffin went unnoticed.

Jose slipped away, small feet racing to the bustling market. Tourists filled the square, determined that a place as far off the beaten path as Belo Quinto would give them a taste of real Brazil.

A woman, blonde and brash and the perfect mark, stood arguing with a peddler over an assortment of religious artifacts. Quick as a rabbit Jose darted between the two, holding out his prize: a rough wooden rosary, fresh from the hand of one Blessed by the Lord.

"Lady, you really shouldn't buy that," the peddler shouted.

She was undeterred by his tactics. "No, I like it. How much?"

The exchange was quick and easy, both Jeannie and the boy getting exactly what they wanted.

"Hey!" the peddler yelled at the boy as he darted off. "You're stealing from the dead."

No one paid him any mind.

* * *

  
_New York City_

Rodney drifted along with his fellow pedestrians, having learned long ago that there was no point in trying to push against the crosscurrents during rush hour. He managed to keep an island of free space about him through sheer will and a readiness to fling an elbow at anybody who stepped on his toes--a readiness that came in handy when he finally reached the office and needed to make a sharp left.

He shook his head as he pushed open the fancy frosted-glass door; it wasn't like they actually needed the high-profile streetside location they were paying exorbitant rent for, but Elizabeth had insisted that making money was all about image. She was right, but he swore he could feel the ache in his pocketbook every time he walked through the door.

Still, it was nice not to have to battle the elevator crowds, or God forbid, climb stairs.

"Good morning, Dr. McKay," Teyla greeted from the front desk. She flapped a stack of pink and white phone messages at him, and he took them wearily.

"Hasn't anybody heard of email? It's not like I'm running a software business or anything."

Teyla cocked a perfectly-groomed eyebrow at him. "Your sister called. She's in Brazil."

"Really? That's nice," he said, distracted by the scene taking place beyond the low partition that separated the reception area from the rest of the office. Radek was waving his hands as he paced the short space in front of Elizabeth's desk, while she watched him with her 'patiently listening' look. "Kavanagh?"

He caught Teyla's nod in his peripheral vision. "The meeting is scheduled for three, but I heard Dr. Zelenka say something about changes in the requirements overnight."

"Great," Rodney muttered, and waded into the mess. The thing that sucked about being an equal partner in a business was that he was equally responsible for dealing with the idiocy of their clients. Usually Elizabeth was able to appease their more irrational customers, but when it came down to it, he and Radek were the ones who had to make their requests work.

"That little, little man," Radek started in the instant he saw Rodney. "Kavanagh has no concept of elegance whatsoever, let alone foresight. This, this is doomed, and it will have our name smeared all over it."

"Far be it for me to disagree with you, but what exactly is he asking for this time?"

Elizabeth handed over the printout without a word. Rodney skimmed the list, groaning before he got even halfway through it.

"That idiot! What the hell is he thinking?"

"Did I not already say that?" Radek snatched the paper out of Rodney's hand and started pointing wildly. "I was thinking if we merge these two--"

Rodney snatched back the updated requirements, already seeing where Radek was going and moving one step ahead. "Right, right, so we should start with the code generator..."

Part of him was aware that Elizabeth was smirking at them as they moved to their desks, but Rodney didn't have time to be offended. They all ended up working through lunch, he and Radek yelling back and forth at each other in their well-practiced system of competitive inspiration, Elizabeth stepping in whenever things got too out of hand in order to keep them on track. By the time Kavanagh showed up (early, of course), they had a viable solution. By the time Kavanagh left, Elizabeth had actually managed to get him to sign off on it.

The club was the only option for preserving Rodney's sanity.

After the first shot, he'd calmed down enough that the pounding of his pulse in his ears no longer drowned out the pounding of the dance music. After the second shot and an extended period of watching Teyla shake it with her boyfriend and the rest of the usual gang on the dance floor, he'd loosened up enough to start enjoying himself.

After the third shot, he'd made his way up the happy hill and was moving back down the slippery slope into morose. Elizabeth obliviously bounced into the booth, leaning up against him as she tried to flag down the waitress. Rodney ignored her, staring at the dance floor in a fruitless attempt to spot Jase in the press of bodies. He gave up when the waitress returned with two shot glasses full of clear alcohol.

"Don't you ever get tired of this, Elizabeth?" He swirled a finger in the air, almost surprised when the maneuver didn't leave eddies of smoke behind. "I mean, I'm thirty-eight years old, for Christ's sake. You'd never see Radek out here, trying to act like a teenager."

"Mmm, more's the pity," Elizabeth said, pushing her extra shot towards him. "You need to relax, Rodney. What's gotten into you lately? Surely Kavanagh didn't bother you that much."

Rodney shrugged and eyed the vodka. "Please. Kavanagh is nothing more than a momentary fly in the ointment. A very well-paying fly, but still."

Elizabeth snorted, then covered her nose like that would erase her faux-pas from his memory. Despite the stupidity of the maneuver, Rodney thought it was cute--something Elizabeth rarely let herself be.

"So what's the problem?" She squeezed his forearm. "The company is as successful as it could possibly be at this point, you and Radek are coming up with amazing, innovative ideas all the time, and you know we're just going up from here. Life is good."

Rodney poked at the shot glass with his index finger, watching it slide through the condensation on the table. "Yeah, I know. That's not what I'm saying, Elizabeth. I just feel like something's missing lately."

"Don't tell me you're regretting the whole friends-with-benefits thing with Jase," she said with a bit of sly 'I told you so' in her voice.

Rodney glared, and Elizabeth sighed. "All right, I'm sorry, I won't bug you about it again."

"Thank you," he said sarcastically. After a moment he slumped down in the seat, fidgeting with a limp cocktail napkin. "Jase might be part of it," he conceded. "But not really. I mean, take the cover of Wired magazine. What's it mean in the big picture? I'm brilliant, I'm going places, I'm a Godsend to technology, blah-blah-blah, but next month everybody's going to be talking about Johnny-come-lately with some stupid tinkertoy. Everything's all so meaningless."

"There aren't any easy answers, I know," she said. "Look, I wouldn't have left teaching if I hadn't felt the need for something more out of life. Hell, I wouldn't have left politics for teaching if all I wanted was some excitement. But we've got it good, Rodney. Maybe you need to stop worrying about the accolades, and just be happy."

Rodney was working up a scathing response when Jase slid in next to him, practically sprawling across Rodney's lap as he reached over to grab Elizabeth's shot. He downed it in a move that happened to be high on Rodney's list of very good things.

"Fuck, I am so wasted," Jase said, but he wasn't even slurring. He was happy and bouncy, grinning at Rodney while he rubbed his hand up and down the inside of Rodney's thigh. "And I've got this big fucking meeting in the morning. I have got to get some sleep."

"Too tired to go home with me?" Rodney asked, trying for nonchalance.

Jase laughed. "I'm drunk, not dead," he said, and then moved his hand higher.

"Okay, going now." Rodney pushed out of the booth, shoving Jase ahead of him. "Elizabeth, see you tomorrow. I'm assuming you can take care of yourself."

Elizabeth nodded, her attention already on the dance floor. Rodney looked over his shoulder; Lorne, Teyla, and Ronon were pressed into a tight, rhythmic cluster near the edge. "Oh, I think I'll manage," she purred.

"Come on, Rodney," Jase whined. Rodney led him out of the club. Jase leaned heavily against him the entire three blocks to his apartment. Rodney would have complained, but since Jase's hands were busy doing interesting things, he kept his mouth shut except to mutter at the stiff lock on the security door.

The elevator ride was enough fun that Rodney almost didn't drag them into the loft, but he wasn't drunk enough to go for semi-public sex. He cursed as he tripped over a small package in front of his door, which set Jase off in a fit of annoyingly high-pitched giggles.

"Such a potty mouth, Rodney." Jase darted across the apartment, stripping as he went with no regard for any of the breakables his clothes endangered. "You going to put that into practice, big boy?"

Rodney rolled his eyes at the little twink routine, plucking Jase's T-shirt off the painting Jeannie had sent last Christmas. Moments like these made him wonder why he put up with Jase at all. But then Jase crawled onto the bed and looked back over his shoulder, and Rodney forgot pretty much every other thought he'd had.

* * *

  
_He lovingly traces the lines of text of the manuscript with the worn pads of his fingertips, re-translating the final words in his head before he marks them down in the small, leather-bound book. The pain and joy of the moment is beyond ecstatic._

_Wrapping his rosary around his hand, he raises it to his forehead in benediction._

_Water drips upwards, plinking against air, disappearing into the ether. The spirit moves._

Rodney woke with a gasp and the sense that something was dripping on him. The sound of water was still heavy in his ears, but the sky outside his windows was clear. His pipes had better not be leaking. Rodney swiped at his face, but it was dry except for a bit of drool at the corner of his mouth.

Jase had snuck out in the middle of the night, of course. Rodney wasn't even sure if he cared anymore. He sighed and pushed his face back into the pillow. He closed his eyes, intent on getting some more sleep.

The phone rang.

Rodney rolled over, snatched the receiver off the cradle and pulled it into bed with him. "What?" he snapped.

"Geez, Rodney. Do you greet everybody that way?"

"No, I'm psychic. I save my best behavior for you, Jeannie."

She laughed. "Hey, I just wanted to give you a ring while I was near a phone."

Rodney frowned and checked his watch. "Where are you, anyway?"

"Belo Quinto, near Rio. It's beautiful."

An insistent beep broke in. "Hang on, Jeannie, I've got another call." He hit the line without waiting for her answer. "Hello?"

"Hey, babe, about time."

"Jase. You could have said goodbye, at least."

Jase laughed; everything Rodney said was always a big joke to him. "Why?"

"Why? Why do I even bother?" Rodney muttered, then rolled back towards the phone cradle. "Listen, my sister's on the line. I'll talk to you later." He hit the connection again. "Jeannie?"

"Yeah?" She sounded distracted, but in a happy way. He liked hearing her like that.

"So Rio, huh?" he asked, trying to remember what she'd told him.

"Oh, it was great. Did you get my package?"

Rodney rubbed at his eyes. He had a vague recollection of nearly breaking his neck on something last night. His big toe was still twinging. "Yeah, yeah, I got it yesterday."

"Well, did you like it? Did you even open it, Rodney?"

He rolled his eyes and heaved himself out of bed. "Of course! Hang on, I'm going to change phones."

He left the receiver off the hook and shuffled towards the door. Jase had managed to knock half of Rodney's software magazines and technical journals off the coffee table in his haste to leave. Rodney didn't bother to pick them up. Mornings were for surviving, not cleaning.

The package was a small paper-wrapped box that had somehow gotten wedged under the iron legs of the stand in his vestibule. No return address, but his own was scrawled large across the brown face in Jeannie's distinctive script. Rodney took it to the kitchen and picked up the cordless, then took a knife to the taped edges of the box. It was full of junk, just like he'd expected, more trinkets to add to Jeannie's pet decorating project--his apartment.

"Oooh, post cards," he said sarcastically, glancing at the bright pictures before tossing them aside.

"Aren't they pretty?" Jeannie gushed. "It's gorgeous here."

He picked up a short wooden...thing, with ridged teeth. "And what's this, some kind of comb?"

"The locals say it's supposed to stimulate hair growth." Jeannie laughed, making the phone buzz with each of her breaths.

"Oh, hah, hah," he groused before lifting out a string of wooden beads. "A necklace too?"

"Um, not exactly. It's a rosary."

"Jeannie," Rodney warned, not at all in the mood to hear about her spiritual revival, let alone to have it aimed at him.

"They're very religious here," she said defensively. "Think of it as cultural art."

"Hmmph." He tossed it aside and looked into the bottom of the box, finding a few more trinkets that he'd toss on the mantle and coffee table later. "So where are you again?"

"Belo Quinto. It's in Brazil. So did you like the package?"

"Yeah, it's great," he mumbled against the phone, trying to get his coffee mug into the microwave one-handed without spilling.

"I thought so," she said knowingly. "Hey, I'm glad I caught you. I'm off on this cruise, I won't be able to talk to you for a month, and I've got to run like right now!"

"Okay, have fun." He licked at the drops of coffee on his fingers, feeling more awake just from taste of it.

"Love you!"

Rodney smiled into the phone. The single life certainly seemed to be agreeing with Jeannie. "You, too," he said, right before she hung up.

* * *

_Rome_

The blue sky was high and clear, and it seemed to fill all of the empty spaces of the crowded city, making the narrow, cobbled streets feel bigger than they were. Voices of the children playing mingled with those of the street hawkers echoing off the ochre walls. John tilted his head back, simply enjoying the skyline.

He'd never lost his fascination with Rome. Not since the first time he'd visited, over twenty years ago. It was a microcosm of the best and worst of humanity. Man's greatest achievements side-by-side with their pettiest concerns.

As if to prove his point, three very lovely women in short-short skirts and ruffled peasant blouses tried to get his attention. John nodded and walked on, but the one in front, the one with the really, really long legs, was determined.

"Hey, pretty boy," she called in Italian. "Looking for a good time?"

"Thanks, but no thanks," John called back.

"Oh, come on. Have some fun, be a man!"

A bit of devilish humor had him turning and holding open the throat of his jacket, flashing the white of his collar. As a group, they laughed and hooted. "No problem! We'll give you the Vatican discount."

John shook his head. He didn't want to know if that were true. Temptation could be strong, and he knew some fell, but he couldn't imagine giving in for a quick romp that would ultimately be meaningless. He walked on, leaving Rome proper behind for the open piazzas of Vatican Cityand finally Il Gesu itself.

He nodded greetings to several brother Jesuits, some of whom he knew, others unfamiliar, as he climbed the sweeping staircase to the cardinal's office. Michael Houseman was studying reports at his desk, as elegant an example of the ideal Jesuit as he always was: greying beard carefully trimmed, scarlet zucchetto centered precisely on top of his head, small reading glasses perched exactly on his nose. He glanced up as John entered, but returned to studying the photo he held. John nodded to Father Dario, Michael's assistant, then sat in the leather armchair perched in front of the cardinal's desk.

"Father Sheppard. Welcome back."

"Cardinal Houseman," John returned formally. He resisted the urge to slouch in the chair, waiting for Michael's lead on the tone of their meeting. John relaxed some as Michael simply turned the photograph towards hima close-up of the Virgin of Belo Quinto.

"These are interesting," he said. "What's the trick?"

John glanced at Dario, then back to Michael's impassive face. That question had been plaguing him since he first saw the statue. "Well, honestly, I'm not really sure."

"They've probably made a fortune out of it." Michael held up another picture, the Virgin's face in a vibrant negative, black features artistically mottled by white. "And what's this?"

John leaned forward. "Infrared photographs of the tears. The statue's made of stone, so it's room temperature. But the tears show up as white because, uh, because they're warm."

"Warm tears." Michael sounded completely skeptical. John didn't blame him.

"Yep. And get this. My lab reports confirm that the tears from the statue are not just warm, but human." John handed Michael the folder with his summary, and got a raised eyebrow in return. He tried to keep the excitement from creeping into his voice. "Hey, I know what you're thinking, Michael, but this isn't a fake. It's a free-standing mass of solid stone. There's no scientific explanation."

Michael tossed the picture back onto the pile. "John, it's my understanding you were sent to Brazil to investigate an appearance of the Virgin Mary on the side of a building."

There it was. And John used to think dealing with the brown-nosing and back-stabbing in corporate business was a nightmare. He took a deep breath and stated his case. "Yes, well, while I was in Sao Palo I heard about the statue, so I decided to take a little side-trip."

"And?"

"And, what?" he shot back, not wanting to have to justify himself further, but willing to do so if Michael pushed.

"The face of the Virgin Mary on the building?"

"It's an oxidation stain." John shook his head, more in exasperation than negation. "Caused by rain water running down untreated side walls. It only looks like a veiled woman."

Michael gathered the papers together and handed the folder off to Dario. "Good. We'll consider the matter closed. Father Dario has your next assignment."

"What? I need to go back to Belo Quinto."

"Why?"

John grimaced. "Because I need to do some more tests on the statue."

Michael sat forward, his full attention on John for the first time since he'd walked into the room. "You're telling me you left the statue in Belo Quinto?"

"Um. Yes." He scratched at the back of his neck. "I was going to bring it back, but the effect it has on the people, it's amazing." Everything in Belo Quinto had revolved around that statue; John had never seen belief that strong among so many. "It's like a cornerstone of their faith."

Michael scoffed. "John, the cornerstone of their faith is the Church. Not a crying statue. When you're in the field, you're a representative of the Catholic Church, and of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints."

"Yes, I'm well aware of that, Michael." John sighed. "I'm also a scientist, and I observe the facts. And, in this case, the fact is that the statue has tears of blood."

"Well if that's the case, you know the policy." Michael stood and picked up the leaf of slides, holding it up to the beam of sunlight before carelessly tossing it back onto the corner of his desk. "The statue is brought back to the Vatican, we perform expert tests. Geologists. Engineers. Medical examiners. We've examined fifty, sixty crying statues in the last twelve months. Not a single one of them has turned out--"

"Yes, I know," he broke in. John couldn't stand being talked down to, but he knew how to deal with it. "I just wanted you to know, that in my opinion, I think that this is different."

Michael stopped in front of the large world map set into the wall behind his desk, staring at it as if he could divine the secrets of the world from where he stood. "I'm not going to allow you to go back to Brazil. We'll get a geologist down there, and if he sees fit, we'll get the statue sent back for further tests. Father Dario, get me all the information you can on this church in Belo Quinto, would you?" Michael turned his head slightly, not really looking at John, just enough to make his dismissal clear. "Thank you, John."

John stood, smiling tightly. "Thank you, Cardinal."

They started talking about him before he was halfway across the long room.

"I have never seen him this way before." Dario's murmur was barely audible.

Michael didn't bother to hide his voice. "John's problem is he can't decide if he's a scientist or a priest."

John snorted as he pushed through the ornate door. He clattered down the staircase, too caught up in reminding himself why he did what he did to care about priestly decorum.

* * *

_New York City_

Rodney stared at the mirror, wondering if he was having a mid-life crisis. His hairline was definitely making a break for over-the-hill. He didn't think it really looked that bad, though, especially when he kept it short and spiky. The bags under his eyes were another story--a too frequent consequence of trying to keep up with a lover ten years younger than he was.

He sighed and turned on the sink tap, letting the basin fill. Mid-life crisis or no, he needed to get his ass in to work on time or Elizabeth would come looking for him. He reached for his razor, but he was distracted by the sound of water dripping steadily. He turned off the tap, but the dripping continued. He checked the shower. Knelt to look under the sink. Nothing.

"Great. My pipes better not explode." Rodney grabbed the shaving cream.

Something flew straight at his face.

"Jesus Christ!" He ducked, protecting his face with his arm as the something fluttered and beat the air in front of him. The can of shaving cream slipped from his fingers, tumbling across the floor as Rodney scrambled backwards.

Soft feathered wings beat flapped in front of him, and then the bird darted backwards towards the mirror.

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me." He flailed his hands at it, and the pigeon took off towards the rafters. A single white feather drifted downwards, hovering over the sink. Rodney darted forward, snatching it out of the air before it could contaminate the clean water.

"This is so not my morning," he muttered, tossing the bit of fluff aside. He dropped his head, bracing his hands against the counter, taking a few seconds to calm himself.

 _Something_ grabbed him. A force stronger than gravity clenched around his body and tugged him downwards. Rodney gasped right before his face hit the water, and got a mouthful of liquid instead of air. Panicking, he thrashed and pushed against the counter, but he was held fast, face smashed against the bottom of his sink, water forcing its way into his lungs. He tried to hold his breath, but he had no breath to hold. He was going to fucking die, drowned to death in his own damn sink, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The force let go.

He jerked his face up, coughing and choking out water, spasmodically trying to breathe in oxygen at the same time. Before he could recover, a stabbing pain flared through his left wrist and up his arm, pain so strong that he stopped fighting for breath. Rodney couldn't see anything, couldn't feel anything, couldn't understand anything, but the pain, striking over and over again. A vision flickered at the edge of his awareness: a hammer striking a huge, wedged nail through his skin.

He didn't pass out. Everything got hazy, though, a blur of pain and images. He heard screaming, but he didn't think he was doing it. Red and blue lights beat against his eyes, but he couldn't make them go away. Noise was everywhere; loud, screeching, piercing sounds, voices he didn't know. Pain. So much pain, and he couldn't even complain about it. Everything moved by too fast.

* * *

Elizabeth dodged the supply cart, then skipped to catch up with the gurney. She could still glimpse Rodney's face through the cluster of medical personnel. He was even paler than he'd been when she'd found him. His eyes were closed now. Elizabeth tried to ignore what that could mean.

"Nurse! Somebody needs to tell me what's going on!" she called frantically as they rolled him into one of the trauma rooms. "Rodney, can you hear me? I'm right here with you, all right?"

An orderly pushed her gently to the side, preventing her from following Rodney into the room. She watched them jostle his limp body around, anger growing as her disbelief of the situation started to fade. He looked so small. Rodney had never seemed small to her before.

"There's so much blood," she murmured. "Rodney?"

She knew he couldn't hear her, but she tried anyway, wanting him to know she was there for him. Blue-scrubbed nurses and doctors darted back and forth, shouting stats and requests to each other as they did things to Rodney. The whole thing was frantic and scary, and she knew he'd be freaked out if he was fully conscious.

Suddenly Rodney sat straight up on the bed, screaming wordlessly. He looked around once, then his whole body shuddered. He flopped backwards onto the bed, and the monitors began screeching. Elizabeth stared in horror as the doctor grabbed the shock paddles, rubbing them together before moving towards Rodney's chest.

Then the doctor moved back, dropping the paddles uselessly to his side.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Elizabeth stepped forward, ready to charge into the room and make them save Rodney, but she stopped as she realized that the machines had returned to a mellow beeping.

Rodney was awake, struggling to sit up. "Who are you people?" he asked, loudly enough that she could hear him clearly.

Elizabeth sagged against the doorframe. The doctors and nurses all looked surprised, but in a good way. She should have known Rodney would blow their expectations out of the water.

The lead doctor, a tall, auburn-haired woman, stepped forward. "I'm Doctor Jamison. Do you know what your name is?"

"What the hell happened? Where am I?"

Jamison took Rodney's panicky questions in stride. She reached for his wrist as she started answering his questions. "You're in the emergency room. You were found unconscious in your apartment. Do you remember anything?"

Rodney shook his head. Elizabeth bit her lip; she remembered all too well.

"Oh, Jesus," Jamison cursed as she removed the temporary bandages from Rodney's wrist. Blood spurted in an arc. "Can I get some more help over here? We need some 4x4's. We have a very deep laceration."

Elizabeth clutched at the doorframe as the bustle in the room increased to its earlier franticness. The doctor was still clutching Rodney's wrist, her gloves blotched red.

"Oh my God, it's gone all the way through," she said, and Elizabeth turned away.

She took several deep breaths. The halls were hazy and muffled, like the club after three hours of solid drinking. Seconds and minutes blurred together as she told herself everything would be okay. At some point she found herself trailing after his stretcher as they moved him to a smaller room. The crisis seemed to have passed; everyone was calmer, less frantic. Except, of course, for Rodney, who kept spitting questions and deprecations in his typical Rodney way.

A nurse found her at the new room and loaded her down with paperwork. Elizabeth filled it out the best that she could, hoping that she'd left her purse in Rodney's apartment and not dropped it in the middle of the street somewhere. When she returned to Rodney's room, Dr. Jamison was perched on a stool at his side, sewing up the hole in his right wrist. Elizabeth sank down onto the hard chair in the corner, unnoticed.

"These are puncture wounds, Rodney, caused by the entry of a sharp object." Jamison spoke calmly, but Elizabeth swallowed hard at her words. "Are you in any pain?"

"No. Huh, that's kind of weird, isn't it?" Rodney tried to sit forward, but the nurse held him in place. "Did you give me something? Do I have nerve damage? I have nerve damage, don't I?"

"No, Rodney, I don't believe you have nerve damage. You were very lucky." Jamison made a surprised noise. "Wow, would you look at that? It only bleeds when I touch it."

Rodney glared at the top of Jamison's head. "Well maybe you shouldn't touch it then, hmm?"

Jamison ignored him, directing her words to the nurse taking notes. "Both wounds are identical, exact size and shape, the same location. He missed the main artery by less than a centimeter."

"You keep saying he. Hello, I didn't do this." And that was Rodney's best 'you moron' look. The thought made her smile, even though she still couldn't understand why he had--why what had happened, had happened. Rodney sounded just as confident and ready to take on the world as he always did.

"Is your life pretty stressful, Rodney?" Jamison asked. "Got a tough job?"

"I run my own cutting-edge technologies business, what do you think?"

"What about a relationship with a significant other? Problems there?"

Rodney snorted.

"Is that a yes?"

"Only in that I'm not very significant." He said it matter-of-factly. Elizabeth winced; she hadn't even thought about calling Jase. "Look, how long is this going to take?"

Jamison sighed and straightened, rolling her shoulders as she finally looked at Rodney's face. "I think you need to stay here at least twenty-four hours for observation. We need to get a handle on this."

"There's nothing to get a handle on!"

"Rodney, I'm going to speak frankly. With wounds like this, it's pretty obvious they were self-inflicted."

"What? Are you nuts? You seriously think I did this? Look, I don't know what happened, but I did not do this to myself. And if you weren't trying to practice voodoo over there, maybe you could figure that out."

Rodney continued to argue in his very Rodney-way as Dr. Jamison finished stitching him up. Somehow Elizabeth found herself promising to look after Rodney for the night, when she hadn't even thought he'd be released for a day or two. By the time she'd helped him get checked out, make a trip to the pharmacy, and get him back home to one very wrecked apartment, she was beyond exhausted.

Perversely, Rodney was restless. He kept pacing around the main room, stopping to peer into the waterlogged bathroom every few minutes, then starting the circuit over again.

"It's a mess in there," he finally said.

Elizabeth nodded; she'd glanced in briefly before deciding to wash up in the kitchen. Puddles of bloody water were all over the counter and floor of the bathroom. She wasn't about to deal with it tonight.

"Rodney, just let it be for now. Come to bed."

He flicked off the light and shuffled back towards his bed. She watched him as he stood beside the bed, his eyes distant and full of something she didn't know how to describe. Finally he shook off the mood and climbed in next to Elizabeth.

"You're not going to molest me in my sleep, are you?" he asked, rolling towards her.

"I think your virtue will be safe tonight." Elizabeth smiled. It had been a long time since they'd spent the night together, but she could almost pretend they were giving in to a night of nostalgia. Almost.

Rodney grunted and rolled onto his back, tugging the most of the covers with him as he went.

"Do you smell flowers?" she mumbled sleepily.

"No," Rodney mumbled back.

Elizabeth took a deep breath, glad to smell something other than sweet iron and bitter antiseptic. The air reminded her of summer in the South. "Jasmine, or hyacinth, maybe."

"I don't smell anything."

"Hmm," she said, sleep pulling so strongly. She snapped her eyes open, trying to remember if she was supposed to do anything else for him. "Do you need anything?"

He rolled again, putting his back to Elizabeth. "I just want to go to sleep."

She rubbed his shoulder in a comforting circle, soft T-shirt and hard muscle beneath her hand. "Night," she whispered, and closed her eyes on the day.

* * *

_Rome_

"Good morning, signor."

John nodded to the guard stationed at the Library desk. "I'm here to see Brother Delmonico."

"Please sign in." The guard held up the clipboard, pushing it towards John's hands.

"Come on, I'll only be five minutes." John smiled, but the guard wasn't impressed.

"Everybody has to sign in."

John sighed and took the clipboard, scrawling his signature over two lines.

The guard didn't even glance at the paper before nodding him through. "Thank you, signor."

John nodded back and stepped through the opened ironwork gate that guarded the entrance to the Vatican Library proper. The room smelled like old leather and paper and ink, with an overlay of ozone from all of the computer equipment laboring in the middle of the stacks. He wove past several unoccupied desks before stopping in front of the one he wanted. Books were stacked high on the corner opposite the computer screen, with notebooks and free sheets of paper scattered in the area between.

John thunked a box of Pall Mall's on the desk. "Duty free," he declared.

Gianni Delmonico's head shot up, a pleased smile crossing his face. "Welcome back," he said, standing to shake John's hand.

"How's it going, Gianni?" John grabbed the slat-backed chair that sat on the other side of the desk and pulled it around so they could talk comfortably. Sometimes he thought about how odd it was that this elderly priest was his oldest friend in the world, but most of the time he just looked forward to the times when he was back in Rome and could share his thoughts about the universe with someone who would understand.

"Well enough." Gianni ferreted out the bottle of Chianti he always had at his desk and pulled an extra glass out of a drawer. John had never understood how Gianni could drink around expensive equipment and books without worry, but he didn't complain when Gianni poured. All of the really priceless documents were sealed away somewhere safe, anyway.

Gianni took a large swallow, then sighed happily. "Ahhhh. God is good. So, how was Belo Quinto?"

John almost sent his mouthful down the wrong pipe. "How'd you know about Belo Quinto? They sent me to Sao Palo."

Gianni smiled enigmatically. "Eh. God lives here, remember. We know everything."

John made a show of looking up and around, trying to keep a straight face. "Oh yeah, I forgot."

Gianni chuckled. "So, how are you doing?"

John slouched down in the chair, legs out in front with his ankles crossed, pondering the question. He checked his usual instinct to respond with a quick 'fine and dandy'.

"I don't know," he finally decided. "I go all over the world, investigating miracles, and then I disprove them. It's a wonder anybody believes anything. I don't know what I'm doing."

"None of us knows what we're doing." Gianni patted his hand before reaching for the bottle again.

John relaxed a little more at Gianni's understanding. He sipped at his wine, wishing that he could reach that easy acceptance, could leave all his striving and questioning behind. For the moment, though, he was able to brush his thoughts aside and let Gianni's company, the wine, and the grand age of the library soothe him.

"So, what're you working on?" he asked, plucking at one of the papers on the desk.

Gianni resettled his glasses on his nose. "I have no idea."

John blinked at that. "How can you translate something if you don't know what it is?"

"I'm a linguist, I translate words, not their relevance. But this one is, eh, a second-century Gospel."

"How many is that you're up to now?" John tried to count, tried to separate Gianni's anecdotes in his head, but Gianna'd been translating Gospels since before John had met him. That first summer, when a teenage boy with endless curiosity had wandered in where he had no place being, it had been one from the fifth-century. Gianni had been as full of love for his words and his God then as he was now, though a little less cagey about both.

"I've helped translate about fifteen." He leaned back in his chair, tapping his thumb against the stem of his glass. "That only leaves twenty still to go."

"So thirty-five Gospels? That seems a bit excessive, doesn't it?"

"Everyone had a different experience of Jesus." Gianni gestured between them, and John nodded, getting his point. "So they all wrote different stories. You see, all the Gospels, they are interpretations. Memories, dreams, reflections."

"And there's no one Gospel in Jesus' actual words," John finished for him.

Gianni shrugged with his hands. "We are all blind men in a cave, looking for a candle that was lit two thousand years ago."

"So what's in this one?" John asked, pointing to the computer screen.

The shrug made it to his shoulders this time. "I was only given every third page."

No wonder Gianni didn't know what he was translating. "Why?"

"The most sensitive documents are always divided into threes among us; one third to the Dominicans, one third to the Franciscans, and one third to us Jesuits. The truth of any document is only known to a very powerful few."

John stood, suddenly uneasy. Even here in the highest sanctum of knowledge--especially here--fear and paranoia were the rule. "That's typical of this place, isn't it?"

"We live in a highly competitive world, you know. The Church is no exception."

Gianni's desk was only a short distance away from a section of the stacks John had never seen opened. He stared at the huge padlock on the gate, unable to imagine what must be inside.

"Nothing ever gets out of here, does it? Unless, of course, they want it to."

* * *

_New York City_

Rodney took a deep breath, tugged his shirt sleeves down for the thirty-third time, and shoved the door open. Teyla looked up from her computer, her ready smile slipping away as her eyes widened. She looked more off-balance than Rodney'd ever seen her.

"Doctor McKay! We didn't expect you back today," she said, standing up and coming around her desk like she was ready to help an old woman across the street. "How are you doing?"

"You mean other than the gaping holes in my wrists? I'm fine." For a second, he thought she was actually going to hug him, but then she nodded and stepped back. "Can I have my messages now?"

"You don't have any."

"I don't have any? After two days? That's odd. I mean, Kavanagh at least--" He stopped as he suddenly realized what was going on. "Okay, so who's idea was it?"

"I do not know what you mean," Teyla said with a completely straight face. "No one has called for you."

Rodney glared at her for a few seconds, but she simply cocked an eyebrow back at him, impervious as always to his stormy moods. He turned to Elizabeth and Radek as they skulked into the reception area together.

"No messages? Please, Elizabeth. I'd thought we'd established early on that I am, in fact, a genius. What are you playing at?"

Elizabeth sighed, and Radek shook his head. "Aren't you supposed to be resting?" she asked.

"No, I'm not supposed to be resting," he mimicked back at her. "I'm supposed to be finishing up the Kavanagh project _right now_ , and I need to know if his secretary is as incompetent as he is or if she actually got me those figures I needed."

"Calm down, Rodney," Elizabeth murmured.

"It is taken care of," Radek jumped in. "While you were out, yesterday. We will be finished on time."

"Great, so now you don't need me? I have a hard time believing that. We were swamped with both of us working on it, so unless--" He cut himself off as he realized both Elizabeth and Radek were staring at his hands as he punctuated his speech in his usual manner. He swallowed and glanced down at his wrists, but the bandages were still covered by his sleeves, no blood leaking out that he could see.

"You know what? Never mind. I'll figure it out myself," he said quietly, and sidestepped the pair of them to head back to his desk. The code monkeys at the back of the office ducked their heads all at once, making a pathetic attempt to look like they were actually working instead of eavesdropping on the bosses.

He resisted the urge to yell _I didn't try to kill myself_ at the lot of them, and instead unlocked his computer and checked his email. Radek and Elizabeth let him be, and soon enough he was lost in the purity of coding.

Two hours later, he sat back, satisfied with the section he'd been working on. His coffee was long gone and his wrists were tired. They didn't hurt, not exactly, but they felt weird. The doctor had told him he'd be unable to use them until they healed, but he hadn't had any trouble. Which was a good thing, since they didn't show any sign of starting to heal. He glanced around the room, making sure everyone was busy with their own stuff, then surreptitiously checked the bandages. The white elastic gauze was spotted red, above and below, but at least he wasn't dripping.

Rodney tugged his loose cuffs back into place, then grabbed his mug and headed over to the coffee maker. Everyone glanced his way as he passed, so he took it out to the empty reception area. Well, empty except for Teyla, of course. She smiled sweetly at him before looking back at her computer. He turned away from her to stare out at the street, pressing up against the cool window.

It was raining again. The weather man had been casting his runes and coming up with sunshine every day this week, blithely ignoring the fact that a monsoon had been more or less raging for the past three days. Rodney snorted at his own hyperbole, then took a long pull at his mug.

The rain didn't stop the foot traffic at all. People just scurried along faster, heads tucked against the fat drops, jackets pulled up high around the necks of those who weren't smart enough to doubt the forecast. Dark umbrellas bobbed above a few, adding to the dreariness of the mass of grey. The cars in the street beyond didn't seem worried about slick pavement, moving along at a decent clip, taking advantage of the lull between rush hours.

The scenery was dull, but Rodney found himself drifting with the sound of the rain, relaxing with the trails of water streaming down the glass in front of him. He just stared, not looking at anything in particular--until he realized a boy was staring back at him.

Young. Maybe eight, maybe twelve; Rodney wasn't good with ages. Sandy blond hair, pale face. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk without a jacket or umbrella or any sign of parental supervision. Rodney glanced up and down the street, thinking maybe the boy was looking at something, looking for something, but he didn't find a likely target.

Apparently, the boy was staring at Rodney. Big blue eyes, almost too big for his narrow face, full of something like fear or despair. Rodney wondered where the kid's parents were--and if finding them would be a good thing.

Then the boy turned around and raced out into the traffic.

"No!"

Rodney fumbled for the door and ran to the street, shouldering through the suddenly thick foot traffic. A glossy black Blazer thundered past him as he reached the curb, splashing dirty water onto his ankles. When it past, Rodney could see the boy standing in the middle of the road, staring back at him as cars whizzed carelessly by.

The boy turned again, and Rodney moved forward, intent on doing something before the kid got turned into mush.

Somebody hit him before he could enter the street, driving him hard to the ground.

"Rodney!"

Rodney shook his head, trying to clear his ringing ears and the water from his eyes. Teyla was on top of him, holding him down.

"What are you doing? Stop the boy, not me!" He shoved at her grip, and she shoved back, her hands far stronger than they looked. "Are you stupid? Let me up!"

Slowly, Teyla slid off of him, rising into a graceful crouch before she stood and held out a hand to help him up.

"Ow," he said reflexively, his back and shoulders already complaining, but he was focused on the street. He didn't see the boy at all, and he thought he might be sick from what that might mean. "Did you see him? Surely someone would have stopped..."

"I saw you almost get hit by a taxi," Teyla said. "What were you thinking?"

Rodney stopped scanning the street, slowly beginning to believe that the kid had made it through alive. He looked at Teyla, who looked as angry as he'd ever seen her. "There was a little boy in the street."

Teyla looked past him, eyes narrowed as she searched the area carefully. "He is not there now," she said quietly, much more calmly than she had spoken to him before. "Come inside."

Rodney let himself be led, feeling like he was trapped in a nightmare where nobody would listen to him, no matter how important and brilliant his words were. Elizabeth and Radek waited at the door, frowning at him as they huddled under a tiny umbrella.

"He thought he saw a child about to be hit," Teyla explained before they could start berating him.

Rodney brushed by them, ignoring Elizabeth's outstretched hand and Radek's incomprehensible murmurs. He sank into the arm chair by Teyla's desk, suddenly shaky from the flood of adrenaline. Teyla, Elizabeth, and Radek stayed in a huddle by the door.

"Should we call the police?" Radek asked, the lower register of his voice carrying despite his hushed tone.

"No, I do not think it's necessary," Teyla said, glancing Rodney's way.

Adrenaline kicked up again, a sudden shock of anger. She thought he was seeing things. He started to shake a little, cold shivering up his arms as another thought hit him: he wasn't one hundred percent sure she was wrong.

Damn, his damp clothes leached away body heat. He needed coffee, but his cup was in shards beside the magazine rack, a small brown puddle marking the remains of his earlier caffeine break.

"He can't stay by himself," Elizabeth said. "His apartment's still a wreck, and I'm not sure if..."

Rodney snorted quietly when she trailed off, able to finish her thought easily enough. _Not sure if he's going to off himself if we leave him alone._ Condemned without a trial, guilty by reason of insanity.

"I'll take him to my place," Teyla said. "I can forward calls to my cell and work from home."

"I don't know, maybe I should stay with him--"

"We need you here, Elizabeth," Radek said. "There is too much work to be done yet."

"I need to change, anyway," Teyla said, her tone wry. Rodney noticed that her fancy pantsuit was wet also, the color more of a mud brown than the light tan he vaguely remembered it being.

They turned his way as a group. Rodney stood up, groaning as his back reminded him he wasn't getting any younger. He thought about kicking up a fuss--they really did need him working--but frankly, he felt like shit.

* * *

Normally, Teyla found the constant clacking of the train on the rails rhythmic and soothing, the dim emergency lights on the tunnel ceiling flickering through the windows hardly noticeable. At the moment, she found them almost unbearably irritating. The florescent light in the car made her feel sallow, the rigid plastic of the seat made her achy and restless. She crossed her legs and the damp linen rasped as her knees brushed together. Perhaps she was so unsettled because she was such a mess herself: her new suit ruined, her hair wet and dirty, the skin of her elbow scraped raw where she'd hit the sidewalk hard.

Or perhaps, it was because Rodney was so silent beside her.

"Are you all right?"

Rodney sighed. "Fine."

Teyla held back a sigh of her own. She didn't truly think Rodney had tried to kill himself, not by running out into the traffic anyway, but he was acting completely unlike himself. He was often quiet while absorbed in his work, but otherwise he was energetic and talkative, always sharing ideas or worries or reminiscences, hands moving along with his mouth, sliding from sarcastic to sly to happily amused and back again as smoothly as a dancer on stage.

She missed that Rodney.

"We'll be home in a minute."

"Mmm-hmm." Rodney barely acknowledged her. He was staring across the car, where three nuns sat quietly, minding their own business.

He stood up, grabbing the pole beside him for balance when the train jerked, then started walking.

"Rodney," she hissed, wondering if he were seeing things again. "What are you doing?"

He stopped a few feet away from her. He stood directly in front of a Catholic priest, a small man with greying hair and a kind face. Teyla stood up, unsure of what she should do.

"Hey!" Rodney snapped his fingers in the priest's face.

"Are you speaking to me?" the priest asked.

"Are you John Sheppard?"

"Sheppard? No. My name's Father Derning," he said calmly. "Can I help you?"

"No one can help me now. I'm fucked." Rodney turned towards the nuns. Teyla started forward as she glimpsed his face. The car lurched again, knocking her off-balance, but Rodney surged forward. He grabbed the large silver cross pendant one of the nuns wore, and with a quick snap, ripped it from her neck.

"Rodney!"

Teyla again tried to move forward, but the train suddenly accelerated, knocking her across the lap of a young woman who'd been trying to ignore the scene. The overhead lights went out at the same time as the car shuddered like it had been caught in a heavy wind. Teyla lost her balance and tumbled to the floor.

She looked up in time to see Rodney flung off his feet. He went flying through the air for half the length of the car before he hit the floor. He slid on his back until he rammed into the rear door. He shook his head, and then, somehow, he managed to pull himself up--something that Teyla couldn't do, no matter how she tried.

"Rodney!"

He reached out, grabbing tethers with both hands so that his arms were spread wide. He stood there, head bowed, swaying with the motion of the train.

Then he screamed.

Rodney screamed, high and long, full of unbelievable pain. He cut off mid-cry, and then screamed again, shorter this time, but the sound still carried over the fearful shrieks of the other passengers and the screeching of the racing wheels beneath them.

He screamed again, and this time, Teyla saw why. His blue and white-striped shirt was split in several places, the torn edges soaked with blood. Rodney screamed again, and another gash appeared.

"Oh, my Lord," she whispered. Teyla put all of her determination into getting up. She pushed against the scudgy floor, climbing the hard plastic seat beside her until she could reach the brake pull.

The brakes screamed as Rodney yelled one more time, his voice broken and hoarse. And then he sagged.

Teyla ran to him, taking his weight as he finally lost his grip on the tethers. She could feel his blood hot and wet on her arm.

"Somebody help us!"

The frightened group ignored her plea, shoving out the doors as the train finally stopped. She could hear Rodney's breathing, harsh and labored, in the quiet left behind. She reached for his hand, hoping to comfort him, and that's when she realized his wrists were bleeding again as well.

"Here, let me help." Father Derning knelt beside them, maneuvering to take some of Rodney's weight on his shoulders.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Rodney gasped out.

They braced him as he vomited over the dirty floor. It was little more than a wet splash of bile and coffee.

"Shh," Teyla murmured. "We've got you, don't worry."

* * *

Rodney shifted on the hospital bed, trying to roll on his back, but he immediately stopped when the stitches pulled at the scores on his back. He sighed and dropped his head back onto his arm, completely bored. The daytime tripe on the television was muted, thank God, but he didn't even have a magazine to keep him occupied. Oh, how he longed for his laptop.

A man entered the room, staring at the chart in his hand. He was about Rodney's height, with short, poofy brown hair and scruffy stubble on his chin. The white jacket and stethoscope looped over his neck didn't add enough to inspire confidence in his medical abilities.

"Rodney McKay?" The guy had an accent, Scottish maybe, strong but not thick enough to garble his words.

"That would be Doctor Rodney McKay," Rodney corrected.

The man finally looked up. "My apologies, Doctor McKay." He held out his hand. "Doctor Carson Beckett. Doctor of medicine?"

Rodney gaped at Beckett. "You're not sure if you're a doctor of medicine?"

Beckett chuckled. "No, no, I am. Neurologist, actually. I was asking what your speciality is."

"Oh." Rodney tried to move again, to get into a more dignified position, but he was pretty much stuck like a beached whale where he was. "Mechanical engineering and artificial intelligence."

"Ah, sounds impressive," Beckett said, nodding as he looked back down at his chart. "So, we're going to schedule some more tests for this afternoon around four."

"Lovely." Three more hours of laying around, doing nothing. "Do I at least get lunch?"

Beckett grinned like Rodney'd made a joke and patted him on the knee before making a few notes.

The tests were a pain in the ass. The MRI was the worst, a nightmare of lying in a tiny, tiny space while the machine made horrible thunking noises around him. He spent the whole time praying that the thing wasn't going to close in any tighter, barely getting through it by thinking happy thoughts of open fields with bright blue skies.

By the time they got done poking and prodding him and getting him to perform like a trained monkey, Rodney was tired. Tired enough he couldn't really put much effort into worrying about what the hell was happening to him. The hospital bed was uncomfortable, he had a crick in his neck, his back hurt and his wrists were leaking, and his arm was tingling from having to lie on his side. Despite all of his discomfort, he fell asleep easily.

They brought him orange juice with his breakfast.

"I could sue for this, you know," he yelled at the orderly scuttling out the door with his tray. Beckett came into the room then, glancing back at the doorway curiously.

"Problem?"

"Did you people not get the fact that I'm allergic to citrus? Or are you deliberately trying to kill me?"

Beckett frowned and looked down at his chart. "No, it's quite clear, Dr. McKay. I'll be sure to speak with them. That's quite a serious mistake."

"Oh." Rodney relaxed, momentarily mollified. "So, what did you find out? Am I psychotic, or am I dying?"

"Neither one," Beckett said with a little smile. "You're sane enough, beyond a few common neuroses. And other than borderline-high blood pressure and the obvious wounds, you're in good health. Though there is a possibility that concerns me. Epilepsy."

"Epilepsy?"

"We've run some preliminary tests, and all things considered, I think that may explain a lot."

Rodney shook his head. "That's impossible. You can't just wake up one day and have that. Can you?"

"Aye, true enough. But you've described blunt trauma to the head, disturbing hallucinations, hearing voices. These could all indicate epilepsy."

Rodney rolled onto his back, ignoring the pain. "You've got to be kidding me. So what happens to me now?"

"I want to insert some electrodes into the upper neocortex--"

"Hold it, hold it, wait." _Neocortex._ "You want to stick wires in my brain?"

Beckett sighed. "Dr. McKay, we're going to do everything we can to figure out what's causing this." He patted Rodney's foot. "You hang in there."

They let him go after that. Rodney signed out and very deliberately did not make an appointment to let them treat him as a voodoo doll. Elizabeth was waiting in the lobby to take him home, anxious for the lurid details.

"The current theory is epilepsy. They want to cut open my skull and mess with my brain. Hello, I don't think so. Obviously they have no clue how valuable my brain is."

Elizabeth caught his arm, stopping his march towards the sliding doors. "Epilepsy? Are they sure? Maybe you should get a second opinion."

Rodney huffed and tugged her forward. "They're all quacks."

"Mr. McKay!"

"Doctor," he corrected automatically as he turned, expecting some office girl chasing after him with paperwork. Instead an older man, obviously a priest by the white collar and black shirt, approached him.

"Doctor McKay. I'm Father Derning." He held out his hand, and after a moment, Rodney took it. "You spoke to me. On the train."

"Huh. Really?" Rodney's memories of the train were jumbled, but as he stared at Derning's features, he could remember dark, worried eyes staring back at him, and a sense of impending doom.

"Yes. I'd like to talk to you about what happened."

"Why?" Elizabeth stepped forward protectively.

Father Derning smiled at her, but didn't answer her question. He directed his own at Rodney. "Do you know what the stigmata are?"

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me." Rodney turned and walked away, not in the mood to put on a polite face to someone spouting mumbo-jumbo.

Elizabeth, of course, had to make nice. "Uh, Father, I've got to get Rodney home."

"I understand how you feel, but if you change your mind, here's my card."

Rodney stepped out into the damp afternoon. He just wanted it all to be over so he could get back to work.

* * *

_Rome_

Michael wasn't at his desk when John entered. He and Dario were clustered near the media console to the side. They both looked up when John loudly scuffed his shoes from a few feet away.

"Ah, John, come in," Michael said, waving him closer. "I think we've found your next assignment."

"I was hoping you'd change your mind about Belo Quinto." John said it with an open, amiable smile, his best 'I'm harmless' look. Usually he just went with the flow when it came to assignments, but something inside him was saying that Belo Quinto was important.

"We have no record of a church in Belo Quinto," Father Dario said.

John looked over at him, surprise knocking the charm off his face. "What? That's impossible. There must be some mistake."

"No mistake, Father," Dario assured him, his voice as serious as always. "I have checked into it myself. If there is a church in Belo Quinto it is not one of ours."

"And no record of a priest assigned to that village, either," Michael added as he straightened from playing with the VCR. He pointed the remote at the TV screen, turning it on. "This was sent to us by a Father Derning in New York, from the train security camera."

John stepped closer to the small set. "What am I supposed to be looking for?"

"Watch," Houseman instructed.

"Stop." John stepped forward, squinting at the grainy image. A man stood in the middle of the aisle, arms spread to clutch at the handholds to either side. Dark slashes marred his light shirt, and after a moment John realized the darkness was blood.

"Obviously, it is some kind of attack," Dario said. "Maybe possession."

"The wrists are bandaged." John tapped his nail against the screen where white bands showed, the cuffs of the man's shirt bunched lower over corded muscle. The man looked like he was in extreme pain.

"According to Father Derning, he was whipped repeatedly by an unseen force."

"How important is this, really, Michael?"

"We don't know yet."

"Then why are you sending me?" John knew he was coming off egotistically, but possession wasn't his area. They usually sent in the psychologists first in suspected cases to rule out the nutjobs.

"Because of this clipping from the Times." Houseman passed it across his desk.

"Twenty terrified witnesses, unexplained wounds, a Catholic priest." John skimmed and handed it back. "Bad publicity, ouch, but I'm sure by the time I get there it'll be completely blown over."

"We're investigating this one." Michael slipped off his glasses and clicked off the television.

Meeting over, argument done, all sales final. John gathered up the paperwork and headed out, wondering if this wild goose chase was some kind of punishment for Belo Quinto, or if he'd just drawn the short straw this time around.

* * *

_New York City_

Rodney had just stood to take his third trip to the coffee maker when Kavanagh bulled into the office. Teyla was ready for him, of course, but Rodney set his new mug down and went out to greet him, Elizabeth's mantra of _be nice to the clients_ stuck on repeat in his head.

"Kavanagh," he said, holding out his hand. "How can I help you? I've got everything up on the test server, if you'd like to take a look."

Kavanagh stared down at Rodney's hand, lip curling up in a way that showed off his buck teeth. Rodney was reminded of Rocky the flying squirrel. With less personality.

Rodney dropped his hand once it was obvious that Kavanagh wasn't going to take it.

"I need to talk to Zelenka," Kavanagh said, finally looking up at Rodney's face. His eyes slid to the side after a second, as if he was trying to see behind Rodney, see through his shirt to the stitches underneath. Rodney wondered if this was some kind of karmic payback for all the times he'd blatantly ogled big-breasted women. "I'll just head on back."

Rodney watched Kavanagh scuttle into the small meeting room they used for clients, absently wondering who was spreading gossip about Rodney's 'incidents'. The article in the paper hadn't named any names, but apparently that wasn't enough to protect him from busybodies.

Radek paused outside the meeting room, making the face that he usually reserved for clients who brought their kids in with them. Rodney snorted. Radek smiled, winking at him before entering the room.

Rodney went back to his work, but he couldn't focus very well. He kept glancing towards the meeting room, trying to guess what Kavanagh was up to. Coming up with rebuttals and suggestions and really, really elegant put-downs.

The door opened after only twenty minutes. Rodney stared down at his keyboard, resisting the temptation to look Kavanagh's way. He stayed like that until he heard the jingle of the front door, then shot to his feet. He raced to the front. Radek was wiping his glasses like they'd gotten dirty through proximity.

"Okay, what does that God-damned flying rodent want now? Did he forget how to find his ass this morning?"

"Rodney," Radek said quietly.

Rodney stopped, heart pounding as he looked towards the door, already trying to figure out how to get out of his disastrous mistake. Instead of Kavanagh, however, one of the most attractive men Rodney had ever seen was staring back at him with a bemused smile. He was decently tall, slim, with dark spiky hair and a masculinely-beautiful face. Rodney let his eyes wander downwards--and got no farther than the white collar before jerking his head up.

"Oh, ah, sorry about that," Rodney babbled out. "For the swearing. Well, and for the attitude. That's not the usual way we handle clients, I promise you."

Radek coughed. Rodney would have kicked him if he could have done it without looking like an idiot.

The priest's smile turned into a grin, the small lines around his eyes crinkling up. "Hey, as long as you're really, truly remorseful, then all's forgiven."

"Oh, believe me, I'm extremely sorry," Rodney said, still trying to accept the fact that this gorgeous man was off-limits. "So, is there something I can help you with? Set up a secure connection to heaven, maybe?"

Hot priest chuckled. "You can do that?"

Rodney grinned. "Well, not yet. But give me a little time. We're not on the cutting edge of technology, after all. We're the blade itself."

"I can see that," hot priest said, nodding to the numerous magazine articles framed and mounted on the wall. He tapped the glass of one that barely deserved to be on the wall, the newsprint itself grainy and faded. It was there because Elizabeth had liked the picture they'd published with the miserly article. The photographer had caught Rodney and Radek goofing around, looking like uber-geeks, while Elizabeth crossed her arms and looked happily superior above them. "Isn't this the Porta Portese?"

"If you mean Rome, yes," Rodney said, stepping closer. "A few years back. You've been there?"

That beautiful smile dipped, became a little self-deprecating, as if there was a lot of story behind it. "I live there."

"Really? I had you pegged as an American."

The priest nodded. "I am, mostly. I've spent a lot of time globe-trotting, though. Looks like you do, too."

Rodney shrugged. "Not that much. A few conventions a year, plus flying out to see clients who are too full--uh, clients who need hands-on involvement. Oh, and I take a trip back home now and then."

"Home?"

"Toronto." Rodney shrugged. "So, uh, what's your name? I feel kind of weird calling someone I could date 'Father'." He stopped, flushing as he realized what he'd said. "Not that I could date you, I mean, I know that, it's just--"

"No, hey, it's cool. I'm flattered." The priest cleared his throat. "You can call me John. John Sheppard, that's my name."

Rodney glanced over at Teyla, shaken. She nodded, letting him know he wasn't imagining the memory of that name pouring out of his mouth like a curse. He turned back to John, who had lost the smile and was watching him with serious eyes.

"Um." Rodney licked his lips. "This is going to sound really, really weird, but I've been expecting you."

* * *

John slid across the creaking red vinyl of the bench seat, then flipped up the coffee cup in front of him as McKay slid in on the other side. The guy was nothing like John expected. Smart and witty, in the kind of way John could relate to. Sure, McKay had an ego the size of Manhattan itself, but he didn't seem to be scarily fanatical or attention-seeking enough to start slicing himself open.

"So, you live in Rome," McKay opened, his attitude more subdued than it had been before John had told him his name.

John nodded. "Yeah, but I travel a lot, so I'm not there much." He smiled at the waitress as she finished pouring their coffee. "Thank you."

McKay picked up his cup and took a long drink, swallowing noisily. He clinked it back onto the table and gave John a hard look. "And you decided to pop by New York just to talk to me."

"Something like that," John said wryly. "Father Derning asked us to come and speak to you, Dr. McKay."

Suspicion darted across McKay's face. "Us? Who's us? I thought you were a priest."

"I am a priest, but I'm also an investigator. I work for a division of the Vatican called the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints." McKay relaxed as John reeled off his credentials, though John doubted if they meant anything to him. John pulled his micro-recorder out of his bag and set it on the table. "Do you mind if I switch this on?"

"I guess not."

John gave him a reassuring smile, which McKay half-heartedly returned, and then settled into business. "Could you please give your full name?"

"Doctor Meredith Rodney McKay," he carefully enunciated into the speaker.

John paused, but McKay's glare stopped him from commenting. "And your age?"

"Thirty-eight."

John nodded for no real reason other than the fact McKay was close to his own age. He stopped himself and went on with the interview. "And which church do you attend?"

Rodney snorted. "I don't attend church."

John stilled, pressing the tip of his pen against his paper for so long that it left a large black splotch. "But you are Catholic."

"No, I'm an atheist."

John scratched decisively across the blank page, wondering if he could get a flight out this afternoon. He wanted to know if Michael had actually sent anyone to Belo Quinto, or if that investigation was completely trashed. "Well, that's it for me. That's all I need to know, Dr. McKay. Thank you very much."

"That's it?" McKay's voice had an edge of hysteria to it, and John wondered if maybe he really was crazy enough to hurt himself. "What do you mean, that's it?"

John sighed, realizing he owed the guy some kind of explanation. "It's like this. Stigmatics are deeply religious people. And given what you just told me..."

"What, there are no exceptions?"

"No."

McKay pulled back, his eyes turned inwards and darting a little, and John wondered if that was what he looked like when he was putting his self-proclaimed genius to work. "Well, why do they get stigmata?"

John dug into his bag, looking for the prayer card he carried with him.

"When Christ died on the cross, he died with five wounds." John handed it to McKay, who took it daintily. "His back was scourged by whips. There were gashes in his forehead from a crown of thorns. Nails were driven through his hands and feet."

Rodney dropped the card onto the table top, leaning forward to study it as he pulled his hands from the table. Hiding them from John's sight.

"And for the last bit of fun, a spear was driven through his side." John picked up the card, tilting it so McKay could see it. "Throughout history, there have been many cases of deeply devout people afflicted with these wounds."

"Yeah, okay, let's pretend for a second they're not a bunch of fakers. Why does it happen?"

John sighed. "There really isn't a satisfactory scientific explanation."

McKay rolled his eyes, but he stayed quiet.

"The metaphysical explanation is that stigmatics are haunted by such intense spiritual pain that in some ways it affects them physically." John picked up the card and tapped the corner against the table, thinking. "They're assaulted by their own visions of evil, and that battle gets manifested in their bodies. The Church regards it as a gift. A gift from God."

McKay laughed. "Oh, that's rich. A gift. Can I give it back?"

John smiled carefully, no longer sure what to think. He was far from an expert in psychology, but he really didn't think McKay was anything other than lost and scared by something he didn't understand.

The lopsided grin dropped away as McKay's hysterical humor faded. He pressed his lips together, then took a deep breath. "Right. So the evidence doesn't fit the hypothesis. Look, can I show you these anyway? You can tell me what you think." McKay unbuttoned his cuffs and held his hands out to John, palms up.

John pushed the fabric further up McKay's right forearm, then lifted the bandage, stained bright red with fresh blood. The wound was no bigger than his fingertip, closed with dark surgical staples. John had no clue what McKay expected him to see, but he dutifully settled the bandage back in place and looked at his left wrist. That wound was identical to the first, but nothing else stood out about it.

John sat back, grabbing his notebook and sticking it in his bag. He turned back to take his leave--and found McKay with his hands still extended, palms down this time, looking at John like he expected him to continue looking.

Fresh spots of blood painted the backside of the bandages, just as it did the front.

Something squirmed through John's stomach, something like adrenaline choked back hard. He pushed the feeling aside and lifted the white cotton. Sure enough, the wounds went all the way through, small holes stitched tight. John brushed his finger along the edge of the right one, and it began to weep. He pulled his finger back, letting McKay fix the bandages.

"Well?" McKay started, but stopped as the waitress returned with the coffeepot. He pulled his hands off the table again, watching her refill his cup with total focus.

"Well?" McKay asked again after she stepped away. "What do you think?"

John ran his hand through his hair, then rested it on the back of his neck. "It doesn't really matter what I think, Dr. McKay."

"What does that mean?"

"It means officially, this is not a case for the Church." John dropped his hand, his words more of a reminder for himself than an explanation for McKay. He'd already stirred up enough trouble with the Belo Quinto thing. "To say that a self-confessed atheist exhibits the wounds of Christ is a contradiction in terms."

McKay slumped a little. After a few seconds he leaned back, obviously digging in his pants pocket. "Look, you know what? Here. Read that." He tossed a crumpled piece of paper onto the table in front of John. "I found that on my kitchen table the other day. Now, I have no clue what that says, but that's my handwriting. The doctors say I've got epilepsy. I'm ready to believe anything at this point."

John smoothed out the paper. The words were surprisingly legible, in a large, rounded print. He read it through twice, making sure he had them right. "Well, it's Italian. It says 'split a piece of wood, and I am there; lift a stone, and you will find me'. Kind of poetic, actually."

"Poetic? That's all you can say?" McKay snatched the paper back. "Obviously it's a warning of some kind. Telling me that no matter what I do, where I go, I can't get away from it. Do you know how important I am? I can't have this happening to me."

"McKay, listen. I'd really like to help you." He really would. John liked helping people, and McKay was all right--when he wasn't freaking out like he was right now. John saw the waitress giving them worried looks, so he stood when McKay did, trying to shield his agitation from the rest of the diner. "But I don't know what you want me to say."

"Okay, you know what? This was stupid. You don't know anything, and I don't know what I was thinking coming here." McKay pulled out his wallet and tossed a couple of bills on the table. "Coffee's on me."

He stormed out of the diner without looking back, shoulders hunched like he expected the world to fall on them any second.

John dropped back down to seat, air whooshing out of the upholstery. He stared out the window the way McKay had headed for a full minute, even though John had lost sight of him within seconds. The faceless crowd had sucked him in a few steps from the diner.

Finally, John broke away from the grey, misty day outside. Dangerous determination was taking hold of him. He pulled his notebook back out of his bag. Father Derning had been convinced McKay was a case of the stigmata, but Dario had suggested possession early on. Maybe John'd let himself get too focused on one thing, let himself be too eager to prove the hypothesis before he'd even done the research.

John started making notes. He hated walking away from people in need. If there was anything he could do to help McKay, he'd do it.

* * *

Radek fingered the dull teeth of his key as he waited. He hoped that he wouldn't have to use it. They each had keys to the others' apartments, but it was a trust none of them took lightly. Rodney would be livid if he barged in without reason.

He hoped he had no reason to do so. Radek knocked one more time. He let out a sigh when he heard heavy footsteps and some grumbled words beyond the door. He slipped the key back into his pocket right before Rodney swung open the door.

"Radek," he said, nodding once. "Checking up on me?"

"Only because I have first claim on your loft." Radek stepped past Rodney, glancing around an apartment that was far from its normally pristine state. "I wanted to make sure you did not destroy it in one of your fits."

"Oh, ha, ha," Rodney said as he shut the door behind him. "Like Elizabeth wouldn't fight you for it, anyway."

"True, true," Radek agreed, searching for someplace to sit amongst the printouts, magazines, and books scattered across Rodney's couch and coffee table. He finally picked up an open book, tall and wide with large glossy pictures overwhelming the text, and set it on top of one of the paper stacks. "She can be ferocious when she wants something."

Rodney snagged the chair from his computer desk, rolling it closer to Radek and dropping into it with a heavy sigh. He looked pale and tired, dark circles under his eyes like he'd been pulling an all-nighter. Radek picked up one of the printouts beside him, unsurprised to find a page titled "FAQ for New Epileptics".

"So did you actually come here for some reason, or did you want me to hold your hand through the last section of code?"

Radek let the paper flutter out of his hand, suddenly too tired for verbal sparring. "I talked to some friends of mine. They say Carson Beckett is the best there is."

Rodney crossed his arms over his chest, settling more stubbornly into his chair. "Oh, wonderful. So my best option is to let the quack cut open my brain and hook me up like Frankenstein?"

"He is not a quack, and you know it. From what I saw of his research, he might even be someone to talk to about our ideas with bio-neural growth patterns."

"Oh come on, Radek." Rodney shot out of his chair, sending it rolling backwards until it bumped up against one of the end tables. "If this were happening to you, would you want them digging around in your neocortex like some rat?"

"Would you rather keep hurting yourself until you bleed to death?" Radek shot back. "Then where will your precious brain be then? You are being an obstinate goat, and it does no one any good."

Rodney's mouth tightened. He turned away, shutting Radek out, and paced towards the kitchen counter. He picked up a string of beads. Radek would have guessed it was a Rosary if he didn't know better. Rodney began running it through his fingers, over and over again, a necklace of worry-stones.

Radek sighed, pulling off his glasses and running his fingers under his own tired eyes. They could argue until they were both blue in the face, but he knew that when Rodney got like this there was no way to get through to him. Perhaps Elizabeth would have more success; she was better at directing Rodney's energies. He and Radek were too similar to truly see what was the other was missing.

Rodney started moving again. The noise of opening cabinets, clinking glass and running water was loud and out of place in the previously still space. Radek shifted, settling more comfortably against the leather cushions, then picked up the picture book he'd set aside earlier.

"It's ironic, really," Rodney said, his voice barely carrying over the low hum of the microwave oven.

"What is?" Radek asked distractedly, eyes locked on an etching of a saint in divine ecstasy, blood streaming from his wrists and forehead.

"I've always thought those people are idiots. You know, the ones you hear about dying from some disease, cancer or something, that could have been cured if they'd just gone to the doctor right away. But they just kept putting it off and putting it off until it's hey, let's measure Uncle Jimmy for his coffin. I've always been very good about getting anything suspicious checked out, you know."

"I had not noticed," Radek said dryly, looking up as Rodney brought two steaming mugs back to the living area.

Rodney didn't seem aware of his sarcasm. "Biannual check-ups." He looked straight at Radek, mouth twisting into a wry smile. "But now I just keep praying for this whole thing to go away. Some genius, eh?"

"All the more reason to listen to me," Radek muttered, reaching for the mug Rodney held out to him. It nearly slipped out of his hand as he caught sight of the wooden beads wrapped around Rodney's wrist, a delicate Crucifix dangling from their length and swaying against the white bandage. Radek resettled his grip, took a sip of the too sweet, too hot, abominably-instant coffee, then set the mug on the floor.

"Tell me you are not taking this seriously," he said, lifting up the book detailing the history of stigmatics.

"What? No, of course not." Rodney pulled the book out of Radek's grasp and tossed it onto the armchair at the other end of the coffee table. "I was just curious. The soft sciences are always saying there's some kernel of truth in every myth. So if even some of these people weren't complete charlatans--"

"Then perhaps there is a medical reason behind it," Radek finished, nodding as he understood. "Something other than epilepsy?"

Rodney shrugged. "That was my hypothesis, of course, but there's nothing in there. Just the same stories, over and over, with never enough detail to actually tell you anything."

"I take it the handsome priest was no help?"

"Please. What was he going to do, do the hokey-pokey and exorcize the demons out?" Rodney shook his head, looking more regretful than condescending. "Stupid Catholic rules."

Radek dipped his head in agreement, then decided to change the subject. "Are you coming in tomorrow?"

"Yes, of course. I'm not going to miss the final presentation--unless you're trying to tell me to stay away from Kavanagh."

Radek rubbed his eyes again. "No, no, I was simply wondering. I think he was unsettled the other day, and not intentionally rude. Well, not any more than he usually is."

Rodney snorted. "Like I'm contagious." He paused, eyes widening with worry. "You don't think this could be contagious, do you? I could have caught it anywhere--"

"Rodney."

"Right, that doesn't make any sense." He tipped his coffee mug back, then plunked it onto a tiny bare spot on the tabletop. "So, I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Radek stood. "Elizabeth wants to go to the club afterwards to celebrate. Maybe it will do you good to go as well, relax a bit."

Rodney smiled at him. "You just don't want her bugging you to go if I don't."

"Like I said, she is ferocious when she wants something. And if she sees what I look like dancing, I fear for the partnership."

Rodney slapped him on the back before opening the door. "I take it you don't remember Cancun, then?"

The door closed, Rodney's Cheshire grin lingering along with the shock of his words. Radek stared at the aged wood, cursing tequila with every breath of his being.

* * *

John tossed his pen down and leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out as far as they could go before they met wall. Father Derning had set him up in a private office, but the desk was small and crowded, and his whole body ached from hunching over his notes and the computer for hours straight. Running into dead ends over and over didn't help, either.

He really needed to get out and about. Get his blood moving, get a little oxygen to the brain.

John flipped back a few pages in his notebook, scanning until he caught the page where he'd interviewed Father Derning. Picking up the handset of the black phone that was a twin of the one his grandmother'd had twenty years ago, John dialed the number he'd underlined twice.

"Beyond Pegasus Technologies. Good morning, this is Teyla. How may I help you?"

"Hi, Teyla. This is Father John Sheppard. We kind of met the other morning." John could tell by the length of her pause that she'd remembered him. He pressed on. "I was hoping I could ask you some questions."

"Ah, Father, hello." She paused again. "I am not certain that I can help you--"

"I'm trying to help Dr. McKay," he jumped in. "I don't want to stir anything up. I just want to do what I can to figure out what's going on with him."

"And you think you can do that."

"I don't know," he admitted. "Look, Father Derning said you were on the subway when McKay was attacked. I get the feeling you don't think it's epilepsy, either."

"I couldn't say," she said after a moment. "And I wish I could help you, Father, but I'm very busy right now."

"Don't they ever let you out of there for lunch?" John wheedled. "I know a great place close by. I'll buy you a coffee and you can tell me what you saw."

Her quick gust of breath whistled across the line. "Fine. Come by at a quarter after one, and we will talk."

"Great. Thank you. This is a big help," he said as sincerely as he could.

"And Father." Her smile whispered across the line, taking the frost off of her initial reluctance. "I prefer tea."

John smiled back. "I'll remember that." He waited for the click before he hung up his end, then sighed. He snagged the keys to the rental and grabbed his bag.

Teyla stepped out the door of the office building as soon as John reached for the handle. She smiled at him, but he got the distinct impression she was trying to keep McKay from noticing him.

"Thanks for meeting me," John said. "You ready for some food?"

"Lead the way," she said, gesturing to the sidewalk.

They walked the rest of the block in silence, Teyla keeping pace beside him easily. She was a beautiful woman, the type he would have let himself be attracted to back before he took his vows. Now, though, he was simply struck by her presence. She had a quiet confidence that was obvious with every move she made, something that went beyond the physical. The few frantic seconds of her on the subway tape hadn't captured that at all.

John headed straight for the door to the diner, but Teyla stopped two feet away.

"This is the great place you know?"

John shrugged. "McKay said it was his favorite. I figured if it's good enough for him..."

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Obviously, you have never actually eaten with Dr. McKay."

He opened his mouth to offer to go somewhere else, but she smiled and pushed past him. John shrugged and held the door. He wasn't that picky, and cheap was better for his limited budget, anyway.

The same waitress took their orders, though her smile was more forced than it had been the first time. John wondered if it was due to McKay's stormy exit that day, or just the fact that he was a priest dining with an attractive woman. People could be really amazing, but that didn't mean that most of them weren't looking for scandal around every corner.

John reached into his bag as soon as the waitress left. "Would you mind if I record our conversation?"

Teyla tipped her head to the side. "If you must."

"Nobody else is going to listen to it but me." He pressed the record button and set the recorder down on the table between them. "So if you could just state your full name?"

"Teyla Emmagan," she said in her clear, strong receptionist voice.

"Great." John flipped open his notebook. "Can you describe what happened on the subway with Dr. McKay?"

Teyla took a deep breath, then pulled her teacup closer. She dipped the teabag several times, then pulled it out and set it on the edge of the saucer.

"I'll try," she said at last. "Dr. McKay was very quiet. I was trying to think of a way to engage him in conversation when he stood up and began speaking to a priest a few seats away from us."

John wrote _priest, trigger?_ , then looked up at Teyla. "Did you catch what he said?"

Teyla looked straight into his eyes. "He said your name."

The skin of his forehead felt tight as his eyebrows tried to climb all the way up to his hair. "My name? Are you sure?"

Teyla nodded. "John Sheppard. That is your name, isn't it?"

John smiled at the sly tone of her voice. "Last I checked." He scribbled down _scam set-up?,_ then nodded to her. "Go on."

"The priest--Father Derning--said no, and then Dr. McKay turned around, grabbed the cross off of one of the nuns behind him, and that's when it started." Teyla picked up her cup, letting the steam waft across her face before taking a long drink. "I tried to reach him, but the train suddenly accelerated, and I was thrown off my feet. He was thrown the length of the train."

"Okay," John said, prompting her forward.

"And he--he got up and just stood there, holding on while it happened. I couldn't reach him." Her voice went low and angry on that last, and John gave her a sympathetic look. "He was screaming, and blood was running down his back, and nobody would help him."

"Everyone looked pretty terrified on the tape."

"They were," she agreed. "The lights went out and the train felt like it was out of control."

"Did you notice anything else unusual? Any strange sensations, weird noises, anything like that?"

She shook her head. "Not that I remember."

The waitress arrived with their food, a good-sized burger with fries for him and a pale-looking salad for Teyla. John slid his notebook out of the way, then took a big bite of his burger.

"Sorry," he mumbled when Teyla gave him an odd look. "I haven't had anything to eat today."

She smiled politely and began picking at her salad. John took another bite--too dry for his tastes, really, but he wasn't going to complain--then pulled his notebook over.

"Can you tell me a little bit about Dr. McKay? What's he like? How long have you known him? That kind of thing."

Teyla shrugged. "I have been with the company since they started it four years ago, but I knew him to a certain extent before that. I worked for Dr. Weir at the university, and she and Dr. McKay were good friends."

John flipped back a few pages. "I think I saw her in the picture on the wall. She's one of the partners?"

Teyla nodded. "She handles the business strategy, and Dr. McKay and Dr. Zelenka are behind the technology. It's a good arrangement."

"You like working for them?"

"Very much so."

John sighed, tossing his pen to the side and slouching back in the bench. He grabbed the ketchup and squirted a puddle next to his fries as he decided how to continue.

"Look," he said, swiping a fry through the ketchup. "I don't know exactly what I'm looking for here. What happened to Dr. McKay definitely sounds weird. And I saw his wounds--they looked painful to me. But I've seen a lot of weird stuff that turned out to be nothing more than fungus or sunspots or people just out to get a little attention."

"Rodney does not need to hurt himself to get attention," Teyla said firmly, her eyes hard and dark. John glanced down at where she held her fork like a spear, and fought the urge to lean back.

"Hey, I didn't say he did." John splayed his hands, trying to placate her. "I'm just saying that if there is something here, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to get to the truth. So if you have any ideas, I'd like to hear them."

Teyla looked back down at her salad. She started torturing a tomato wedge, pushing it through a smear of dark dressing before tumbling it over and over across the plate.

"My family has always had great faith," she said, cutting the tomato in half with a quiet thunk. "We are not overly religious, but I was raised to believe that there is something out there beyond us all, beyond what we know."

John nodded. Teyla set her fork down and looked up at him again.

"I do not know what happened on the subway, but in my heart I know that it was nothing of this world."

He had nothing to say to her quiet conviction. They ate in silence for a few more minutes, keeping their own counsel. John finally pushed his plate away and began wiping at his fingers and mouth with the thin diner napkins.

"Why were you two on the subway, anyway?" he asked as the thought occurred to him. "Wasn't it the middle of the work day?"

Reluctance stole over her face once again. "Dr. McKay wasn't feeling well. He thought he had seen a young boy about to be run over in the street, and was nearly hit by a car himself."

John's eyebrows shot up again. "Is the boy okay?"

Teyla shook her head, and the hamburger in John's gut did a greasy squirm. He really, really hated it when kids got hurt.

"There was no boy," she said. "Dr. McKay was...imagining things."

John relaxed, even as his mind grabbed on to the information and started trying to fit it into the puzzle. "So he was hallucinating?"

She shrugged. "I think he mistook an odd reflection in the rain, and thought the worst. It was very brave of him."

"Sure was," he agreed. Before he could say anything more, Teyla scooted out of the booth, picking up her purse and her check.

"If you'll excuse me, Father, I must get back to work. I have a lot to finish up before the weekend."

"Uh, right, thank you," he said, caught between the instinct to climb out of the booth to walk her to the door and to just offer his hand from where he was sitting. "I really appreciate your help."

Teyla elegantly inclined her head. "I just pray that you can help him," she said, and walked to the register before John could do either.

He sighed and pushed his plate away. After a few seconds' thought, he picked up his pen, tapped it against the paper, and wrote _apparition? manifestation of possessor?,_ and underlined it twice.

John thought it might be time to ask Rodney McKay a few more questions.

* * *

Elizabeth was at their usual table when Rodney got there, watching the dance floor with her feet tucked up beside her on the bench and a bottle of beer in hand. She looked up and grinned when he slipped in beside her.

"Rodney! I didn't expect to see you tonight."

"Well, here I am." He raised his arm and snapped his fingers at the waitress.

"Here you are," she agreed. "It feels good to be done with Kavanagh, doesn't it?"

Rodney snorted. "For the time being, you mean. I have no doubt in my mind that he'll be calling up next week with changes he wants done--stat."

Elizabeth's smile was just short of evil. "Yes, but now we can charge him out the ass for it."

That made him grin. "Oh, the pleasures of being the man."

The waitress returned with his beer. He tipped the butt of the bottle towards Elizabeth, and she clinked it with her own.

"So, where is everybody?" The dance floor was crowded, but there weren't any drinks on the table other than their own. He scanned the mass of people again, but he didn't see anybody he recognized. And Ronon usually stood out.

"Teyla said she was going to be here later. I have no idea about anyone else."

"You, ah, you haven't seen Jase, have you?" Rodney took a long drink, the cold burn feeling better than it usually did.

"No, I haven't," Elizabeth said, too much sympathy on her face. "Have you talked to him at all lately?"

Rodney sighed. "No. I think I've been dumped. And the crazy thing is, I'm not sure I even care."

Elizabeth uncurled like a cat and leaned towards him. "Rodney--"

"No, I'm serious, Elizabeth. I mean, why should I care about some little twink who can't even bother to check in and see if I've sprung another leak? It's not like we had anything in common besides sex, anyway."

She squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry anyway. How are you doing otherwise? Really."

He snorted and held up his spotted wrist so she could see it. Then he tugged his sleeve back down and waved to the waitress again.

"You know, if there is a God behind all this, he really hates me."

"Don't say that," Elizabeth said. "Just because--"

"Just because my life's falling apart? What the hell am I supposed to do, Elizabeth? As much as I want it to, this isn't going away."

The waitress finally deigned to show up at their table, proffering a tray of clear plastic shot glasses filled with a glowing green liquid. Rodney gave them a suspicious look and ordered another beer. Elizabeth accepted a shot, sucking at it slowly like she was savoring whatever odd flavor the bar had cooked up tonight.

"Have you talked to Kate?" Elizabeth asked after she downed it. "Maybe--"

Rodney rolled his eyes. "I don't need a shrink."

"She's helped you before."

"With my various neuroses, yes. I'm not making this up, Elizabeth. Talking about it isn't going to fix the problem."

"I know that, Rodney." She looked down, biting her lip as she concentrated on pulling the label off the sweaty bottle in front of her. "But she might be able to help you deal with everything else."

He didn't bother to respond. He dragged his finger through the ring of condensation on the table, then flicked the drop into the smoky air. The whole club glowed blue, the pulsing lights over the dance floor refracting off of the heavy particles in the air like the afterglow of an electrical storm. Rodney snorted; if he really did have epilepsy, this place was guaranteed to set off his brain.

He stiffened as he thought he caught a flicker of glossy blond hair among the dancers.

"Is that Jase?"

"What? Where?" Elizabeth leaned forward, but Rodney didn't wait for her opinion. He pushed to the edge of the floor, trying to focus on faces as they bobbed up and down and back and forth.

His vision blurred for a second, a veil of smoke drawn across his eyes. Rodney blinked--and saw hands driving towards his head, shoving a ring of thorns towards his face. He backed up, feet fumbling, bouncing off of dancing bodies, but it was no use.

He screamed when the spikes pressed into his flesh.

Rodney turned and ran. He couldn't see anything but the blue blur of the club and mysterious hands shoving thorns into his head, over and over again. Somehow he found the door and got it open.

He thought he heard Elizabeth yelling for him. Fear and pain surged again, and he ran.

* * *

John pressed the buzzer next to McKay's name again, then shoved his hands back under his armpits. It wasn't raining, but the air was damp, almost drizzly. Enough so that he felt chilled when the slight breeze gusted more strongly. He rocked on his heels a few times, then pressed the buzzer a third time, resisting the temptation to hold it down until he got McKay's attention.

John glanced at his watch--and then shook his head at himself. Seven o'clock on a Friday night. McKay was probably out doing something fun. John had been with the Church long enough that he tended to forget that people did that, dating and partying and stuff. Not long enough that it still didn't weird him out that he forgot that kind of thing, though.

Giving up with a sigh, John turned and skipped down the steps to the street. He pulled up short when he saw a man running full tilt towards him. The man stopped when he reached the curb, panting heavily.

"Dr. McKay?" he asked, voice falling soft with disbelief. Blood streamed down McKay's cheeks, dripping off his nose and chin. His hair was damp-dark, probably sweat mixed with the blood, and his eyes were wild. "What happened?"

McKay's eyes flicked towards him, but John wasn't sure if McKay actually registered his presence. John started towards him, but McKay spun and started running again, darting towards the alley a block down.

"Damn," he muttered quietly, the curse slipping out before he could stop it. "Dr. McKay, wait! Let me help you!"

McKay didn't slow down. John dashed after him, slowing as he reached the mouth of the alley McKay had disappeared into. The sounds of the city cut off as he stepped between the buildings, traffic noise fading away and leaving an almost preternatural stillness. He thought he heard a voice or two, low and guttural, but he didn't see anybody. Didn't see anybody except for McKay, who was standing at the far end of the alley, empty liquor bottle gripped in one hand like a club.

"Dr. McKay!"

A steam vent next to John exploded, hot gas rushing upwards. John flinched, throwing up an arm to cover his face. The loud rush of the steam died down, and in its place John heard the sudden smash-tinkle of breaking glass. He waved away the lingering vapor in front of him. McKay lifted the bottle, jagged edge pointed at John.

"Hey, take it easy, McKay," he called, not sure what the guy was thinking, but it couldn't be good. "Just drop the bottle, and we can figure out what's going on."

Instead of listening to him, McKay turned around and awkwardly clambered onto the hood of the old Ford Thunderbird parked under the fire escape. John circled to the side, watching as McKay carved something into the paint, metal and glass screeching and scraping with each jerky stroke. As he got closer, he could hear McKay mumbling something, could see his lips move.

John slid his recorder out of his pocket and turned it on, holding it out towards McKay. McKay looked up, bottle still hovering over paint, and in that instant, John knew that whatever was in control, it wasn't Rodney McKay.

"Aalla shatteeen man beesha!"

John stretched his arm forward, hoping the tape picked up the angry jumble of words, because he sure as heck hadn't understood them. McKay shook the bottle at him, shouting the phrase a second time.

Running footslaps echoed down the alley. John glanced over his shoulder. Dr. Weir raced into the alley, short hair flying around her face. She stopped when she saw McKay.

"Rodney!"

McKay dropped like a stone. The bottle fell out of his hand and shattered on the pavement. He started to slide off the hood of the car, and John hurried to catch him. Weir was a few steps behind John, her hands darting forward to help before she hesitated and drew back.

"I've got you," John whispered as McKay moaned, his eyes fluttering open. His irises were pale in the glow of the street lamp, almost washed clear, and were full of confusion and pain. "Hey, it's okay."

"What happened?" Dr. Weir asked. "Rodney, are you okay?"

McKay shook his head, slumping into John's shoulder. He made it to his feet though, and John started them walking in the direction of the apartment building. John grimaced as McKay staggered for a step, his arm pulling hard on John's neck.

"You're the priest who Rodney talked to the other day." Weir made it sound more like an accusation than an insight. John wondered what McKay had told her after his interview.

"That's me," he agreed, still shuffling forward. "Father John Sheppard. I'd offer my hand but I'm a little busy right now."

"Of course," she said, her tune changing to almost apologetic. "What happened?"

"I was kind of hoping you could tell me. Can you get us into his apartment?"

Weir shook her head. "I didn't bring my key. But he should have his..."

John stopped, propping McKay up as she quickly rifled through his pockets.

"After my virtue again, Elizabeth," McKay mumbled. John snorted.

"Yes, Rodney, I'm going to molest you in front of a priest," she shot back. Then she stepped away, shaking her head. "He must have dropped it. Damn it."

"I have a car just around the corner. We can go to St. Joseph's."

Weir nodded after a moment, and John concentrated on getting McKay to the rental. The drive wasn't far, but it felt like it took forever. McKay was asleep or unconscious, sagging against the seatbelt. The blood on his forehead had dried in rusty streaks.

John missed McKay's vibrant wit and energy from their previous encounter. Weir's worried silence from the backseat smothered his every impulse to speak, to ease the situation, so he kept his thoughts to himself and concentrated on driving.

Father Derning met them at the door. The look on his face when he saw McKay echoed John's own thoughts, confirmation and worry in equal amounts. Together they managed to get McKay into one of the guest chambers.

"I'll bring some bandages," Derning said quietly, and then slipped out the door.

"Are you sure we shouldn't have taken him to the hospital?" Weir asked, arms crossed as she stared at McKay from across the room.

John brushed McKay's hair away from his forehead, peering at the small wounds. "I don't think it's that bad."

"No hospital," McKay mumbled. He opened his eyes, blinking slowly, fuzzily, before his gaze locked on John's. "Please."

"No hospital," he promised. Derning returned, a bowl of water balanced in front of him and a first aid kit tucked under his arm. John took the bowl, rung out the wash cloth floating in the water, and began cleaning the punctures on McKay's forehead. They weren't deep, just far enough in to cause bleeding, but they kept oozing. Just like the wounds on McKay's wrists.

"It smells like flowers in here," Weir said.

John nodded absently. He couldn't really smell anything but fear, sweat, and blood. McKay watched John as he worked, mouth drawn down and sliding to the side, full eyelashes shuttering the exhaustion in his eyes.

"Do you believe me now? Or do you still think I'm making this up?"

John sighed and turned away to rinse out the cloth. "I never thought you were making it up," he answered. "But this just doesn't fit with what we know about stigmatics."

"So maybe you should use your brain and expand your small-minded theories a little."

"Rodney!" Weir scolded, but John shook his head, not worried about being challenged.

"Maybe you should tell me everything that's happened to you, and not just what everyone can see," he said, wrapping his thumb and index finger around the bandage on Rodney's wrist.

Rodney gently tugged his arm free, then rolled onto his side, away from John. "I'm tired," he mumbled.

John patted his shoulder. "We'll let you rest."

He nodded to Weir, who didn't seem inclined to leave McKay's side, and picked up the bowl of water. After he dropped it off with one of the sisters, he returned to his temporary office. John pulled his recorder out and listened to McKay hiss out the mysterious phrase. Then he rewound and listened again.

Sighing, he stopped the tape. John was pretty good with languages, recognizing more than he could speak as a result of all the traveling his family had done in his youth, but whatever was on the tape was as good as gibberish to him. Glancing at the clock, he picked up the phone and dialed Rome.

"Pronto."

John smiled; hearing Gianni's voice was as good as homemade apple pie and a glass of excellent wine, all in one. "Hey, Gianni. I've got something you need to hear."

* * *

Rodney woke slowly but unpleasantly. His bladder was full, his head was pounding, and his back felt like he'd spent the night on the open trail under the stars. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, then started to run his hand through his hair, stopping when he felt the slick plastic of BandAids.

"This is not happening to me," he said, trying to picture wide open spaces, even though he had no clue how wide open spaces would help. But he concentrated on field upon field of tall, swaying grasses, butterflies dancing above the bent seed heads, and after a minute the anxiety faded a little.

Maybe Heightmeyer wasn't a complete quack.

Rodney took a deep breath, then crawled out of the torture contraption of a bed. He was still dressed, but missing his shoes and socks. A minute's searching turned up neither his footwear nor a bathroom, so he heeded the demand of his bladder and left the room barefoot. The linoleum flooring was chilly, as well as tacky from the residue of years of overzealous mopping. His toes curled against the sensation.

The bathroom turned out to be the door opposite his own. He took care of business quickly, then hurried back. A knit throw was crumpled on the floor, fallen where he'd probably kicked it off sometime in the middle of the night. Rodney tucked it around himself to ward off the chill that had seeped in through his feet. He started another lap of the room in search of his shoes, or at least his socks. He stopped cold when a crucifix above the bed drew his eye.

"Good morning."

Rodney turned, immediately zeroing in on the two coffee mugs John held in his hands. "Bless you, Father," he said, reaching for the mug even before he was in range. John surrendered it without protest, and Rodney buried his face in the hot caffeine.

When Rodney emerged from the steamy bliss, John was watching him, eyebrows squiggling across his forehead like he'd never seen a man drink coffee before.

"What? I'm in withdrawal here."

"Must be some habit," John drawled before taking a sip from his own cup. "So, how are you doing this morning? Other than your need for a twelve step program, of course."

"Yes, make fun of the man in pain." John smiled at him, almost devilishly, and Rodney smiled back before he remembered why he was there. He took another gulp of the coffee, then stared at the mug while he tried to sort out how to say what he wanted to say. "I, uh, wanted to thank you. For not taking me to the hospital last night."

Rodney glanced up, and found John watching him with soft eyes. Not pity, but something that pulled the words out of Rodney before he could stop them. "They always look at me like I'm nuts," he babbled. "At the hospital."

John shook his head. "You're not nuts."

"Yes, thank you, I know that," he said, but it felt good to hear John say it. "But I was looking at this," he said, pointing to the crucifix on the wall behind him, "and maybe we're way off on the stigmata thing. The nails are through his palms. Mine are through my wrists."

John shook his head, not even bothering to look at the cross on the wall. "Actually, scientists have discovered that in Roman times people were crucified through the wrists, not the palms. There's no way the hands could have supported the weight of the body."

Roman times. Rodney rolled his fingertips across his sweaty palms, those words finally bringing home to him that they were talking about actual history in all its gruesome reality, not just some Biblical myth.

"Right. I should have thought of that." Rodney licked the dryness out of his mouth. "Wait. So you're telling me that every painting, every statue of Christ, and every single crucifix in the whole world is wrong? That's mass stupidity on a level that... No, never mind, that doesn't surprise me."

John snorted. "Not wrong, exactly. Just...inaccurate. They're all impressions of the truth. Icons are meant to be inspirational, not educational."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "And yet people lap it all up, take your Church's trappings like trinkets tossed directly from the hand of God to the drooling multitudes. The world's greatest marketing campaign ever."

"Hey, now. There's more to it than that." John pressed his lips together, obviously thinking hard, before holding up a hand as if inspired. "It's like Jedi using light sabers. Sure, they're kind of antiquated compared to blasters, but they're a symbol of faith, enduring even through the hardest of times."

Rodney just stared for a few seconds, processing the fact that a _priest_ was hitting him with Star Wars metaphors. "Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope?"

John grinned. "Well, I always preferred Han Solo, but whatever gets you through."

"I'll stick with R2, thank you. Technology is a lot more predictable."

"And you like predictability," John said, like that was a bad thing. "No desire to look for something more out there?"

"I'm always looking for something more," Rodney shot back. "That's what technology is all about."

John dipped his head to the side and made a little shoulder wiggle that Rodney took to be shrugging acknowledgment of the point.

"Right now, though, I'm looking for my shoes," Rodney added. "Did you hide them or something? Give them to an orphan while I was sleeping?"

"They're in the closet," John answered dryly, pointing to the sliding door Rodney had somehow missed on his previous circuits. "We're not generally in the shoe-napping business."

"Oh." He set his mug onto the dresser, then opened the closet and pulled out his shoes. He sat down on the bed to put them on. He'd laced the first one when he looked up and realized John was still there, watching him. "What?"

"Listen, McKay. About the stuff you were saying last night."

Rodney frowned. "What stuff?"

"In the street. It sounded like gibberish to me, but it's an actual language." John stopped, looking at Rodney like he was about to tell him his cat was dead.

"Okay, and?"

"It's a form of Aramaic that hasn't been used for 1900 years. It's a dialect that was used in Galilee around the time of Jesus."

John watched him carefully. Rodney looked away as the pit of his stomach dropped out. The whole situation was stupid, impossible, and made no logical sense.

The bandages on his wrists seemed to wink at him, big red eyes smirking from a white, white face. No matter how impossible, it was happening. And it was happening to him.

John tapped him on the shoulder. "Let me give you a ride back to your apartment. Unless you want me to call Dr. Weir? She dropped her key off earlier, but she said she could come get you if you wanted."

Rodney shook his head, standing and following Sheppard to the car in some kind of brain-fog. It was raining again, and the repetitive swoosh-squeak of the windshield wipers threatened to suck him in. He rubbed his hand over his face.

"I wouldn't have pegged you as a Star Wars fan," Rodney said. He turned in the seat so he could watch John, who seemed completely focused on driving, hands easy on the steering wheel as his eyes flicked to the mirrors and back to the road. He had an elegant profile, full lips and high cheekbones, artfully trimmed hair just shadowing the tips of his ears. Rodney squinted; he thought there might even be a few dashing grey hairs in John's sideburns.

John shrugged, his lips tugging to the side in a small smile. "Only of the original trilogy. I don't know what Lucas was thinking with the new ones."

Rodney scoffed. "One word: money. How else do you explain Jar Jar?"

John shuddered theatrically. "Not while I'm driving, McKay."

Rodney laughed, settling more comfortably into the seat. "Really, the only redeeming thing about those movies was Natalie Portman's nip-" He cut himself off as he suddenly remembered who he was talking to. He tried to get his mouth to form an apology, waiting for Sheppard's condemnation.

John glanced his way, a truly dirty grin flashing across his face before he turned back to watch the road. Rodney's mouth went dry, his apology completely forgotten. John turned the conversation with a completely innocent remark about Portman's acting skills, but Rodney couldn't look away from the way his lips shaped the words in order to come up with an appropriate response.

"McKay? You okay?"

"Hmm? Yes, yes, fine. I just didn't think priests were allowed to watch movies, I guess."

John shrugged. "Like I said, I fly a lot."

"Right." For some reason that ended the conversation, and John didn't seem inclined to start it up again. They rode in silence the rest of the way. Rodney slipped into a half-asleep state, lulled again by the rain and the wipers. He'd been so exhausted lately--which of course was attributable to the blood loss--and he hated the way that even caffeine couldn't combat the sluggishness that overtook his brain at times.

"This is it, right?" John asked as the car slowed to a stop.

Rodney blinked the stickiness out of his eyes, peering through the rain to confirm that they were parked in front of his building.

"Yes. Ah, thank you. For the ride." He reached for the door handle reluctantly, the urge to extend their time together slowing his movements.

"You're welcome," John said. "I have some thoughts I want to look into, but I'd like to come by later, if that's okay."

"Not a problem," Rodney agreed quickly. "Just buzz me."

"Will do." John smiled, and suddenly Rodney had energy again. He practically hopped out of the car. He waved goodbye as John pulled away, then rocked on the edge of the curb for a minute, hands in his pockets as he watched John fade into the distance.

Paper crinkled under his fingertips. He pulled out the wadded scrap of paper, unfolding it to reveal foreign words in his own handwriting. _Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift a stone and you will find me._ That was what John had said it meant; Rodney didn't remember the meaning anymore than he remembered writing it down or putting the paper in his pocket.

He stuffed it back into his pocket with a sigh and headed up to his apartment.

* * *

John leaned into the buzzer, but it didn't make McKay respond any more than the first three times had. He sighed and stepped away. Normally, he'd just give up, but he had a bad feeling about the situation. He stuck his hands in his pockets as he tried to come up with options.

A young woman slipped past him, smiling shyly as she spotted his collar. John nodded, waiting as she turned her key in the lock, then with very little compunction caught the door before it could close all the way. He promised penance for his actions later, but right now he needed to know that McKay was okay.

The door to McKay's apartment was wide open. A dove perched on the threshold. It barely acknowledged John, only hopping a couple inches to the side as John crept forward. He searched for any sign of an intruder, fervently wishing for something a little more solid than his bag of equipment. Like a baseball bat.

John relaxed when he saw McKay standing at the back wall of the loft. John took a quick orienting look around McKay's apartment. It was an open plan, a counter sectioning off the kitchen area from the rest of the space. A couch and coffee table sat near the front of the apartment, with a computer desk not far away. A large bed was sat against the side wall not far from where McKay stood.

John frowned. McKay was oblivious to his presence. He was using a black marker to draw lines of script on the white wall. More than three quarters of the surface within McKay's reach was already full of the same chicken scratch that he'd etched into the Thunderbird's hood last night.

"Dr. McKay? McKay!"

McKay didn't respond at all.

"Rodney?"

John set his bag down on the cream-colored couch, pulling his camera out by touch. He couldn't take his eyes off of McKay. He flicked on the flash, waiting for it to charge as he advanced the film. The hum built to a whine, and he lifted the camera, focusing it on McKay, and then snapped the picture.

McKay flinched at the flash, but then continued writing. John took another picture. McKay flinched again, then he shuffled to the side so he could reach the last section of wall. Curious, John waited until McKay raised his arm again, and took another picture. This time, McKay half-turned towards him, as if annoyed by the interruption.

John took a step back as he saw McKay's face.

His skin was drawn tight and puckered, as if he'd suddenly pruned up in the sun. John stepped forward, studying McKay more closely. His dark blonde hair was lighter than usual, almost a gray-white, and it was frazzled and mussed. The hand that gripped the marker was also wrinkled, bent stiffly into a claw-like grasp.

John swallowed hard. "Who are you?"

McKay turned to face John fully, the movement a struggle. John tightened his grip on the camera. McKay's eyes were rolled back further than John thought physically possible, only the whites showing.

"The messenger is not important," McKay said, his voice deep, his words slower and more melodic than usual, slurred by a strong Italian accent. McKay--whoever--turned back to the wall, arm stretching upwards slowly, achingly, to continue his work.

John moved closer, snapping picture after picture. McKay flinched at each popping flash. John wondered what he was experiencing, if it was pain, or surprise, or some spiritual affliction John couldn't guess at.

McKay stopped writing, the marker falling from his hand as he turned away from the wall. John lowered the camera, watching carefully as McKay limped forward, his right leg dragging a little with each step. John held himself ready as McKay moved closer, but he just moved on past without acknowledging John.

McKay reached the end of his unmade bed, turning in a slow half-circle until his back was to the edge. Then he simply fell backwards, bouncing a little as the mattress cushioned his weight. Water condensed from thin air, a slow cascade of individual drops splashing down onto McKay's forehead.

John set his camera aside, too shaken to take good photos. The lines in McKay's face were fading away with each drop of water. McKay--Rodney--reached up, wiping his face clean. When he opened his eyes, they were full of blue once again.

"I feel like my heart's been broken. Why am I so sad?" Rodney asked. His voice was high and tight, but definitely his own. He covered his eyes, a half-sob escaping before he cut it off.

John shook his head, a fruitless gesture since Rodney couldn't see him.

Rodney cleared his throat. "It smells like flowers in here. Do you smell that?"

"Yeah. Like gardenias." It was a heavy tropical scent, thick and sweet and almost rank. It tickled the edges of John's memory, but he couldn't bring the thought forward.

Rodney wiped at his eyes and his cheeks, then stood up, moving easily, no signs of pain or age slowing him down. He locked onto the far wall immediately. "What the hell is that?"

"You wrote it," John answered, watching as Rodney seemed magnetically drawn to his work.

"I did what?"

"I watched you," John said. "Do you know what it says?"

Rodney shook his head, his eyes wide and fearful as he stared back at John. John didn't know how to fix that look, so he picked his camera back up and started photographing the writing on the wall.

* * *

_Vatican City_

Strong breezes blew through the courtyard, ruffling hair of the passersby and rippling the water pooled in the fountains. The statues alone were impervious to the wind, ivory ladies chilled grey only by the passage of time.

Cardinal Houseman walked sedately, Father Dario more hurriedly at his side.

"Have you heard from Father Sheppard?"

"No, your Eminence." Dario handed over a folder, the fax paper within flapping like white bird wings as soon as Michael opened it.

"What are these?"

Dario pointed, catching a flyaway edge. "These are newspaper clippings from our office in New York. From as far away as Pittsburgh and Washington, even."

Houseman flipped between the pages. "These are even more damaging than the first one. And this one mentions the stigmata. Sheppard doesn't seem to be diffusing the issue at all."

"Shall I call him home?"

"No." Houseman closed the folder and handed it back to Dario. "Have him conclude his investigation immediately and present his findings to me in New York at the end of next week."

Dario nodded, taking his leave and retracing his route along the stone-paved path. Houseman turned to a pair of new visitors, shaking hands in prelude to more of his busy day.

* * *

_New York City_

John snapped another picture, then stepped back and stared at the wall in front of him. The writing was more distinctive than any chicken scratch; some lines curved gently, others squiggled, while the majority drove straight and true, crossing in short hatches or jagged lightning scars across the wall. Most importantly, he recognized several repeated throughout.

"Hey Rodney, take a look at this." John tilted the camera, focusing in on one symbol in particular. "Rodney, come over here."

John turned around when he got no response. Rodney was standing by the open window, staring petulantly at the unperturbable doves clustered on the sill.

"I can't believe you don't remember any of this." John turned back to the wall, awe dueling with his scientific curiosity. "Could you just come over and take a look?" He set his camera back down on the tripod, fiddling with the clamps as he waited. "They say sometimes subjects  
retain fragments or images that can be transmitted subconsciously--"

"I'm not a fucking subject, and I don't remember anything," Rodney snapped as he stormed past John. "Don't you get that, Sheppard? I don't know what anything on that wall means."

"Hey, I didn't mean--"

Rodney lifted his arms, shaking his wrists in front of John's face. "I don't know what any of this means. I just want my fucking life back, okay?"

"Rodney, I know," John started, but Rodney was already hustling towards the door. "Where are you going?"

"Out."

John sighed as the door slammed shut. He snapped on the lens cap, then hurried across the room, pulling the door shut tight behind him before he bolted down the stairs and out the door. Rodney was rounding the corner at the end of the block. John slipped into the crowd, moving as quickly as he could to catch up.

John found Rodney less than a minute later, standing still as he stared at a flower stand. Just about every variety of flower John could think of spilled out of the slim kiosks: lilacs and tulips and roses, orchids and some bright yellow flouncy blooms that reminded him of his mom.

"So, is this what I have to do to get back into your good graces? I really thought candy was more your style, McKay."

Rodney shot him a look sour enough to wither the flowers around him. John winced.

"I'm sorry," he tried again. "I guess I got caught up in scientist mode, and forgot how tough this is for you."

"Yeah, about that. What kind of scientist is a priest, anyway?"

John snorted. Rodney'd managed to make the question half-disgust and half-curiosity. "Like you care."

"No, tell me." Rodney moved closer, the hard, angry set of his jaw gone like it had never happened. Instead, he stared at John like he was a specimen himself. "What kind of a man do they send chasing after rumors and speculation, calling it science and religion all at the same time?"

That question was a little too close to the ones he asked himself everyday. John licked his lips and looked away from Rodney's searching gaze. The flower shop abutted a small streetside café,and he latched onto it with relief.

"You hungry?" John asked. "We could sit and talk for a bit."

Rodney followed John without protest, dropping into the chair and scooping up the menu in one smooth move. The waiter was at their side almost as soon as they sat down, pad perched as they decided on their orders.

"So, scientist?" Rodney prompted as soon as the waiter hustled off.

John sat forward, steepling his fingers over the folded napkin. "I'm a physical chemist by training. Though I do a little of everything in the field, because the Church can't afford to send a team after every rumor, as you put it."

"A chemist? Really?" Rodney grinned, and John couldn't help wondering what kind of charlatan Rodney had pegged him as before. "Where'd you get your doctorate?"

"Nowhere big. Good enough to get me into industry." John shrugged. "A few years of that is enough to get anybody looking for the bigger picture. So I became a priest."

Rodney's mouth dropped. "Just like that? You threw away your life and just up and became a priest?"

"Hey! I didn't throw my life away."

Rodney waved his hand impatiently. "Yes, yes, whatever. Out of the blue, you decided you didn't like being what you were and said hey, you know what? I think I'll be a priest."

John waved a hand back at Rodney. "No, not out of the blue. I thought about it a long time, and it took a lot of training. But yeah, I get your point," he said as Rodney opened his mouth again. "I know it sounds weird. I guess it had been in the back of my head for a long time. I have this friend, Gianni. Brother Gianni Delmonico. I met him in Italy when I was a teenager, and he helped me through a lot of stuff. And after a while, what he said, it just made sense to me."

"Science makes sense," Rodney batted back at him. "That sounds like being groomed for a cult."

"It was nothing like that," John said quietly, calmly, and after a moment Rodney nodded, giving into John's certainty. "And science doesn't have all the answers. The more I learned, the more I looked, the more it couldn't answer the questions I had. There are holes in the theories that nobody's ever going to fill in. So I figured, maybe, those holes are where God steps in."

Rodney stared at him for a long moment. "I don't get it, I'm sorry. Those holes are the reason we keep trying. You just don't throw up your hands when a hypothesis fails and say 'oops, must be God'."

John rubbed his hand over his face. He wanted Rodney to understand, for some strange reason, but he wasn't going to get through by bantering about shaky facts.

"Look, take the sky. We've got a pretty good handle on the atmosphere, right? But sometimes I look up at it, when it's incredibly blue and goes on forever, and I think there's got to be more to that than just nitrogen and oxygen and trace elements. More than just the refractive index of sunlight through water and dust. There's something miraculous about it, something more, and I just want to be part of..."

John trailed off, whatever words he was going to say catching tightly in his throat. Rodney was staring back at him, wide eyes the same color as the sky right before the sun dipped enough to wash the blue into yellow. Miraculous.

He cleared his throat, trying to get back on track. "Uh, haven't you ever thought that?"

"No," Rodney said bluntly, and John sat back, feeling kind of stupid. "I mean, not like that, not really. I, uh, guess I haven't looked at the sky much lately."

John smiled at Rodney's wistful tone. "You should try it sometime. It's pretty cool." He held up a finger. "And free, I might add, which is always a bonus when you've taken a vow of poverty."

Rodney snorted. "Believe me, not something I'll be doing any time soon."

"So I take it the computer industry is treating you well?" John asked as the waiter returned with their drinks.

"You could say that," Rodney said, a smug smile growing across his face. "Or you could say that they've learned to bow down before our genius and throw money in proper tribute."

John laughed. "So that's why you're doing this? Money?"

Rodney shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, I really, really like what I do. But I got sick of being brilliant and poor, so I got out of the theoretical and started being practical."

"You were at a university?" John took a sip of his water. Rodney was relaxed and animated now, nodding as he launched into his explanation hand-first.

"The grant applications alone were a nightmare," Rodney said. "And don't get me started on the whole tenure game."

"Mmm, politics. Fun."

Rodney cocked his index finger right at John's face, lowering his thumb with a pop of his lips. "Exactly."

The waiter came back with their sandwiches, halting conversation as they both dug in. John found himself watching Rodney more than eating anything himself, hoping that Rodney's good appetite was a sign of improving health.

"I still don't get it," Rodney said around a big mouthful. "The whole priest thing. I mean, who does that? No sex, ever?"

John coughed, his water sliding the wrong way for a few seconds. "I wasn't always a priest, Rodney," he said after he could breathe again.

"Oh." Rodney considered that. "So, what, you didn't like it?"

"What's not to like?" John smiled; he couldn't help pulling Rodney's leg.

"But you don't miss it?"

"I'm a man, of course I miss it." John pushed his plate to the side. "I know it's the deal-breaker for most people, but once you make that choice, it's doable. I've just exchanged one set of complications for another."

"Huh. That's...truly bizarre."

John slouched down in his chair, more amused than anything else. "Glad I could entertain you, McKay."

"No, I'm trying to understand, really." Rodney sat back, considering again. His leg brushed up against John's, hotter than it should have been through two layers of cloth. "I guess it's like when I get really focused on my work."

John nodded. "Except all the time."

"And we're back to 'who does that'? I mean, not even your own--"

John jumped as Rodney cut off mid-sentence with a pained shriek. Rodney pushed out of his chair, knocking over his glass as he flailed. John pushed his own chair back as Rodney stumbled away. Rodney yelled again, bumping into another customer as he fled, and that's when John saw.

Blood poured from Rodney. Cascaded from his wrists. His face. His feet. When he turned to the side, still struggling to get away, John saw lines of blood streaked across the back of his shirt.

Everything felt like it was in slow motion, like John was trapped in molasses as he tried to move forward to help. The vision in front of him played out in frame-by-frame slowness, Rodney's pain crystal clear.

Rodney cried out again and spread his arms wide as he fell, rows of flowers crushed beneath his body.

* * *

Rodney opened his eyes slowly, awakened yet again by the sound of water plinking nearby. The droplets never seemed to stop, yet he hadn't been able to track them down when he'd looked. It was enough to drive him crazy.

If the stigmata didn't make him lose his mind first.

He rolled over at the sound of a muffled footstep. John froze, then relaxed when he saw that Rodney was awake.

"Hey, how you doing?"

Rodney tugged the blankets closer. "Like somebody shoved nails through my body and then forgot to give me the good drugs."

John made a humming sound that was probably sympathetic before crouching down beside the bed. "We could fix that, you know. The drug part."

Rodney shook his head. He'd had enough experience by now to know that the pain would fade soon enough. And John had taken good enough care of him earlier that he wasn't bleeding all over everything.

He was fine. At least until the next attack. "So this was the fourth," he said slowly, considering what that meant for him. He felt a kind of detached curiosity about it.

John cocked his head, eyebrows drawing down. "What do you mean?"

"Didn't you say there were five wounds? This is the fourth. What was the fifth again?" Rodney should remember himself; he'd studied picture after picture, read all the descriptions he could find in the books.

"The spear," John answered quietly.

Right. Maybe he hadn't wanted to remember. "The one that killed him."

"Rodney. It's not going to happen. No stigmatic has ever received the full five wounds."

He opened his eyes, and found John staring at him, a living block of unshakeable conviction at his bedside. Rodney could almost believe it himself, but he knew there were stronger forces at play than John's will.

"Have you ever met any other stigmatics?" Rodney let his eyes drift shut as he waited for John's answer.

"I have, actually. I made a short pilgrimage to the mountains of Southern Italy, shortly after my ordination." The covers whispered over Rodney's arms; John was rearranging them, tucking Rodney in tighter as he spoke. "There's a priest there, Padre Pio. He first received the wounds when he was twenty-three. The same age as Saint Francis of Assisi."

"St. Francis of Assisi?" Rodney repeated, the words slurring slightly with his exhaustion.

"The first to receive the stigmata. Back in the thirteenth century."

"Oh, right. The guy with the birds."

John snorted. "Yeah, him. Apparently, he was a real wild guy when he was young. Right up until the point when he got this vision of being crucified alongside Christ. When he woke up, his hands and feet were bleeding."

 _Visions._ A striking hammer, the inescapable shadow of a crown of thorns. "How fun for him," Rodney muttered. "So, this Italian priest, were his wounds as bad as mine?"

The bed shifted as John sat down, just beyond touch. Rodney would have shifted closer, but he was too comfortable where he was at the moment.

"Padre Pio? Sometimes he lost a pint of blood a day. And he suffered terrible demonic attacks."

"Demonic attacks?" At least he'd been spared that much--unless seeing his lost youth creamed by an SUV counted. "A priest?"

He could hear John nod. "All stigmatics suffer the most intense spiritual conflict."

Rodney opened his eyes. "How many wounds did he have?"

John was silent a long time, avoiding Rodney's gaze. "Two," he finally confessed.

"Oh." Rodney wasn't sure what answer he'd expected, but two was... two too few.

John stood up, moving briskly across the room to retrieve his ubiquitous bag. "I need to develop this film," he said, returning to Rodney's bedside. "Check out a few more things."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Hello, digital camera?"

John smiled. "Now that would be too easy. Are you going to be okay alone? I can call somebody for you."

Rodney shook his head. He felt overwhelmed, and cranky, and he didn't need Elizabeth fussing over him. "I just want to sleep."

"Okay, then." The smile lines on John's face softened. "I'll be by later to check on you."

Rodney nodded, and John headed towards the door. Each step he took seemed to draw the warmth out of Rodney, cold reality taking the place of the dull hope John's presence had instilled in him.

"Sheppard," Rodney called, stopping him at the door. "John."

John turned back slowly, as if he was reluctant to halt his escape.

Rodney swallowed hard. "I'm dying, aren't I?"

Even across the room, Rodney could see the way John's jaw clenched, an almost frightening intensity snapping across his face.

"Not if I can help it," he growled.

Rodney nodded, and John left without another word.

* * *

John hit send, watching the progress bar move as the latest set of scans uploaded.

"This next batch has closer shots," he said into the mouthpiece of the old phone. He was glad the small parish had actually shelled out for decent computer equipment. "I'm guessing it's Aramaic."

Gianni's breath echoed across the empty line for a long pause, then he made a small grunt of assent. "I'm looking at it now."

The line went silent, like the call had been lost or Gianni'd stopped breathing. "What? Is there a problem?" John asked.

"Yes," Gianni said at last. "Don't send me any more of these pictures. How many did you send?"

"Six," John said, glancing over at Father Derning, who was looking through the rest of the stack. "Why, what's wrong?"

"The problem is what it says," Gianni whispered.

"You're killing me here, Gianni. What?"

"It says, 'the kingdom of God is inside you and all about you..'" Gianni trailed off, the reverence in his hushed voice clear across the miles. John wasn't sure what to make of those few words, why they frightened Gianni so badly, but before he could ask more, Gianni's voice snapped in his ear. "John, forget you saw this. Drop it immediately. Don't send me any more pictures."

John glanced back at Derning, confusion and concern combining to make him feel more than a little paranoid. He hunched over the mouthpiece. "Gianni, tell me what's going on."

"Do you remember the Gospel--" Gianni cut himself off.

"Gianni?"

"Do you remember the Gospel Commission?" Gianni whispered. "It was closed down suddenly by your friend, Cardinal Houseman."

John vaguely remembered some gossip about it. "A few years ago, right?" He was pretty sure he'd been in Mexico at the time.

"We discovered a document that looked like a completely new Gospel."

"Okay, so what's the significance of that?" John asked impatiently. "Don't you work on those all the time?"

Gianni made an irritated noise. "Not like this one. I was one of the three translators who worked on it. It was written entirely in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and his disciples. It may be Jesus' actual words."

John sat back, stunned. "Wait a minute. You're saying--"

"Pronto," Gianni broke in, making no sense.

"Gianni?"

The disconnecting click was loud, static crackling in his ear. John set the phone down, wondering what in the hell was going on.

Father Derning stepped close, holding a picture up for his inspection. "What's this?" Derning asked. "Is it a painting?"

John took the picture, tilting it to reduce the glare from the fluorescent light. It was of the writing on McKay's wall, like the others, focused the rightmost section in particular. A bronze frame dominated the top corner of the shot, an old man's face peering out of it.

"No," John answered, puzzled. "It's a mirror."

"Well, who else was in the room with you?" Derning asked.

"I don't know."

"I thought you said it was only you two."

"It was," John said, checking the back of the picture. "A-16. Do you have the negatives?"

Derning handed over the plastic-enclosed strips. John held them up to the light, Derning at his shoulder. A fuzzy image of an old man's face was in every shot of the mirror.

"Who is that?" Derning asked.

John tossed the negatives to the side and grabbed his bag. "I'll be back as soon as I can," he said, and rushed out the door.

* * *

_Vatican City_

Gianni dropped the receiver onto the cradle as casually as he could, though the guard on the second floor walkway had left minutes earlier. He popped out his flashdrive, deleted every single email and attachment, and logged out of his account. He slipped the drive into his pocket, gathered up his lunch bag, and left the Vatican library the same as he did every evening.

Father Dario ghosted out of the shadows a minute later. He headed straight to Delmonico's computer, pecking out his password with a single finger. A few clicks more and the retrieval program did its work. A photo appeared, dark squiggles across a rectangle of white.

Dario printed it out.

He found the cardinal on the staircase of Il Gesu, hurrying to yet another meeting.

"Cardinal Houseman," he called.

Houseman stopped, impatient. "I'm late."

"At your discretion," Dario agreed. "But I think this might be of interest."

Houseman took the printout, studying the photo quickly before looking up at Dario, shocked. "Where did you get this?"

"It was emailed to Brother Delmonico."

"By whom?"

"Father Sheppard in New York."

Houseman frowned, then studied Dario suspiciously. "Do you know what it says?"

"No. Is it important?"

Houseman didn't answer, instead turning back up the stairs. "Tell them I'll be late," he ordered, and moved quickly towards his office.

* * *

_New York City_

The front door buzzed. Rodney hit the intercom. "Yeah, come on up," he said. "The door's unlocked."

A few minutes later, he heard John open the door to his apartment. "Rodney?"

"Hey, in here," he called from the kitchen. He snagged a couple bottles from the fridge and popped the caps. "Want a beer?" Rodney held it out as John slowly walked over to him. "You look like you could use one."

"Thanks," John said, accepting the beer. "You're in a good mood."

Rodney shrugged, then took a long drink, watching over the bottle as John did the same. "I feel good." He set his bottle to the side, then held out his wrist. "Take a look at this. It looks like they're getting better."

John set his beer on the counter, then cradled Rodney's hand, pushing back the bandage. Rodney peered down at it, but it looked the same as it had that morning, no blood in sight, wound drawn tight and dry around the stitches. John rubbed his thumb over the pale skin next to the dark threads, and Rodney suppressed a shiver.

"Wow, that looks great. Really good. You'll be able to get the stitches out soon." John smiled at him, lips sliding up to the side, eyes shining, and Rodney grinned back. "Let me see your forehead."

Dropping Rodney's hand, John reached for his forehead, lightly sweeping his fingertips over the scabbed lines there, lingering far too long to be clinical. "Does this, uh, does this hurt?"

Rodney shook his head, his skin brushing against John's as he did so. He could see John's smile fade, could see him lick his lips and then swallow hard, and Rodney had to close his eyes as John's hand drifted, brushing through his hair and down his cheek. Rodney turned his head  
at the last second, catching John's palm with the slightest touch of his lips.

John pulled his hand away like he'd been burned. He stepped back, but he didn't seem mad, only confused. Rodney followed him as he moved aimlessly through the room.

John stopped short when he saw the wall. "You painted over it?"

"Well, I ran out of paper and thought I might need some room the next time inspiration struck," Rodney said dryly. "Of course I painted over it. It wasn't exactly high art."

John's lips twitched, and Rodney decided to press the advantage. He moved in close to John's side, letting their hands brush against each other. John didn't move. Rodney curled his fingers, the tips ever-so-lightly caressing John's palm. The shock of that tiny touch went all the way up Rodney's arm, diffusing into warm arousal throughout the rest of his body.

John closed his eyes, taking a deep breath that he never seemed to let out again.

Rodney stepped around to face John, their fingers still almost intertwined, and cupped John's cheek with his other hand. Rodney wanted to pull him close and take him deep, but John looked like he was barely breathing, wound so taut he might jangle apart at any second. Only the euphoria Rodney'd woken up with kept him pushing forward, pushing past his better judgement.

John sucked in a harsh breath when their lips met, but he didn't pull back. Rodney did, just a little, letting John have a moment before moving in again. This time, John kissed him back, mouth opening to let Rodney in. Rodney let his hand slide down John's throat, then fisted it in the cloth of John's black shirt, whimpering a little at the passion coursing between them. Without thinking, he wrapped his fingers around the small buttons on John's chest, needing to get closer.

John grabbed his hand, shoving it away. By the time Rodney got his eyes open, John was ten feet away from him, staring out the window. Rodney groaned, and not in the fun way. He dropped down on his couch, giddiness turning to frustration.

"I really, really hate that uniform right now."

John shook his head. "It has nothing to do with the uniform."

"Yes, I know, it's your stupid vow. What, you promised to be dead from the neck down?"

John looked back at him, jaw clenching up. Rodney sighed. He got up and walked over to John, trying a softer approach.

"I, ah, I see the way you look at me. And you've got to know how I feel about you by now, right?" Rodney reached out, dragging his fingers across John's sleeve. When John didn't move, Rodney moved in closer. "John," he whispered, angling for a kiss.

"No!" John snapped, roughly pushing past Rodney, breaking the light grip on his wrist.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Anger surged up as John ignored him to pace back to the other side of the room. Ignored him to stare at the damn wall again. "This is because I painted over the writing, isn't it? I don't have anything you're interested in now, is that it?"

John turned around. "Get over your--"

Red rage flashed through him, and with it, power. He grabbed John by that damn shirt, using it to shake John up, shake sense into him.

"Answer me!" The words shrieked out of him, his voice echoed by another's, deeper and more powerful. John stared back at him, offering up no defense, no explanation, no apology, and Rodney's rage grew. He picked up John by the lapels, strength surging through his arms, and tossed him to the ground. John slid across the floor, coming to a stop when he hit the foot of the bed.

"You're so proud of your holy abstinence." Rodney stalked towards John, the words coming easily, like he could see right into John's psyche, could cut right down to the diseased parts with knife-sharp words. Rodney hauled John up again, snarling at the way John held himself in, not even trying to defend himself. "Like touching someone would kill you!"

He threw John across the room. Lamps and trinkets crashed off of his tables and bookcases, papers fluttered in the air. John shook his head, looking dazed as he struggled to sit up.

A line of blood trickled from John's nose.

John was bleeding.

Horror overcame rage, and Rodney moved forward, wanting to help instead of hurt. He tried to move forward, anyway. He wasn't the one controlling his feet. His body lurched, taking short, careful steps until he was crouched over John.

"So that's why you became a priest," his voice hissed out, only it wasn't his voice. Rodney struggled, hysteria rising, but nothing happened that he wanted to happen. Instead, his hand reached out, hauled John up again, shoved him across the room and through the doorway of the bathroom.

"It has nothing to do with your little stories." The taunts just kept coming, and he was helpless to stop them. "You're so proud of your Church's virgins and eunuchs. You want to be just like them."

John's lips worked, but he didn't say anything. He stared back at Rodney, looking dazed and worried. Rodney wanted to cry, but instead he lifted John and straight-armed him through the glass of the shower door. John whimpered as Rodney dropped him, curling in on himself. Tiny pieces of glass covered his clothes like a crust of ice, sparkled in his hair like sequins.

Before Rodney could tell if John was going to be okay, his body spun and marched across the apartment to his kitchen. He yanked open a drawer.

 _No, no, no, no, no,_ he yelled over and over, but nothing came out. His hand closed on the varnished handle of the utility knife. Rodney tried everything he could think of: screaming, going limp, clenching all of his muscles at once. But his body simply stalked back to the bathroom, where John had managed to prop himself up against the tiled wall.

Rodney's hand touched the point of the knife to the hollow of John's throat, the nausea rising in his gut having no effect on the surety of his grip.

"How's your faith these days, Father?"

John didn't move. His eyes were mostly pupil, locked on Rodney's own like he was trying to find Rodney inside of the demon that had them both trapped. John breathed through his mouth, his nose red and swelling, his face dark with exhaustion and stubble and the shadow of bruises spreading under his skin. Rodney felt John swallow hard, the shift-slide of his Adam's apple vibrating up the knife and into Rodney's hand.

"How's your faith?" that voice growled again, and Rodney knew in that instant that he'd do anything, give anything, to move the knife away from John's delicate skin. He tried again--

And the knife shifted. His arm drew back, slashing down--

Rodney screamed inside as the blade tore through the skin on the inside of his own arm. "Is this what you fucking call God?"

The knife slashed again, slicing across Rodney's skin. He whimpered, but no noise came out. He wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't. He was staring at John, who was reaching out to him, hands begging Rodney to stop.

If only he could.

"Blood of Christ!" Rodney watched in horror as the tip of the knife edged under the first stitch on his left wrist. He screamed as it flashed, ripping through the stitches, ripping through the flesh.

The sound echoed around his apartment. Rodney coughed, gasping for breath. He dropped the knife as soon as he realized he could, barely hearing the clatter over the sound of his pain.

"Rodney?"

John was struggling to stand, hunched over and holding his arms around his ribs. Rodney nodded at him, words beyond his strength at the moment. He staggered to the edge of the bed, planning to rest for just a second before he made sure he didn't bleed to death.

Something jerked him flat.

"Rodney!"

Rodney felt the mattress shoot out from under him like it had been sucked down a black hole. The room tilted. He thought he was going to pass out. He wanted to pass out. Dizziness and nausea hit him in a wave as he realized he was suspended in mid-air, his feet dangling over the remains of his bed, arms spread wide like Christ on the cross.

John stood in front of him, and below. Rodney whimpered. Reaching out, reaching up, John pulled Rodney down into his arms, taking all of Rodney's weight as whatever had held him let go at last.

Rodney closed his eyes.

* * *

_Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania_

Late afternoon sun dazzled across the edge of the desk, but shadows blanketed Marion Petrocelli's sleep-crusted eyelids. He snorted harshly as the phone rang, a great snore that ripped through the grey hairs of his mustache and rifled over his beard. The phone rang again, and Petrocelli woke, wiping a hand over his mouth, rubbing the wrinkles from his cheek before answering it.

"Yes?"

"Don't hang up." The words were whispered in Italian. "Don't hang up."

Petrocelli straightened, fully awake. "Who is this?"

"An old friend."

A harsh breath. "Delmonico? What's happened?"

"The missing Jesus gospel," Delmonico said, excitement clear despite his hush. "It has turned up."

"That's impossible!"

"Alameida."

Petrocelli heaved himself to his feet. "Alameida? Where?"

"In New York."

Petrocelli flipped on his fax machine. "Send me something!"

"I don't know. Houseman will kill me." Delmonico hung up without another word, but his anxiety remained behind.

Petrocelli fumbled open the center drawer of his old writing desk, fingering through the few keepsakes stored there. He drew out the framed photo, brushing away the dust streaked across the glass. Three foolish old men stared back at him. He shoved it back into the drawer.

Fifteen minutes later, Petrocelli's fax machine beeped.

* * *

_New York City_

John sank down onto the chair next to the bed, taking a break. He still needed to wash the blood off of Rodney's face, away from where it was crusted around his eyes, but Rodney was sleeping peacefully, and John was exhausted. It had taken everything he had to get Rodney bandaged up, get the mattress back on the frame, and get Rodney into it. John's ribs were screaming at him now, and between them and his nose, breathing was something he wished was optional.

The apartment was trashed. Water and blood pooled in several places on the hardwood floor. The bookcases were nearly cleared of their contents, the pictures on the walls skewed crazily on their nails. John had a feeling Rodney was going to have a fit when all of this was over with, once the memories of pain and fear had faded some.

John brushed a hand through his hair, carefully checking for more glass. His skin prickled with the feel of tiny jagged edges under his clothes, but he was pretty sure that was just his imagination. As sore as he was, he was very lucky.

Rodney'd been lucky, too, though John hadn't thought so as he'd watched the knife flash again and again. The cuts had been shallow, thankfully. Only the wrist wound was deep, the stitches ripped free as much as cut, the blood of the stigmata flowing freely once again. John had been so afraid for Rodney. He'd been afraid to move. He'd been afraid to even say anything, worried that doing so would provoke the possessing spirit even more.

Rodney's eyes flickered under his lids as he slept. A tiny drop of drool glistened at the corner of his open mouth. John shook his head half-heartedly; he was so far gone he had no clue how to find himself again.

He spotted a rosary dangling from the edge of Rodney's wrecked nightstand, the large wooden beads obviously hand-carved, dark with age and use. Snorting, he scooped it up. Even he could take a hint now and then.

The words came haltingly at first. Soon enough they ran together in a soothing, comfortable rhythm. John tried to put all his heart into the prayers, but his eyes kept straying back to Rodney's pale face.

John shut his eyes.

"Huh. I don't think I've ever seen you pray before."

John opened his eyes to find Rodney watching him with sleepy-eyed curiosity, not condemnation. "I haven't prayed in a very long time," he confessed.

Rodney simply nodded. He held out his hand, beckoning to John. "Come here?"

John swallowed hard, shocked by the way his heart leapt at the request. Rodney pulled his hand back.

"I won't--" He stopped, looking down at the rumpled covers. "I'm sorry about before. The me part of it, anyway."

"Hey, no." John took the step between them. He settled in on top of the covers, lying on his side so he was facing Rodney. He wanted to say something else, but he wasn't sure what. Instead, he gently rubbed his finger across Rodney's cheek, trying to erase the trail of the dried blood tears.

"John." Rodney cupped John's hand, forcing his fingers to still, and slid their hands lower to curve around the slope of Rodney's jaw. John shivered; Rodney's skin was soft, his stubble short and tickling.

Scooting forward, John dipped his head and drew Rodney towards him, resting their foreheads together. Rodney brushed his fingers over John's lips once, then curled his hand around John's tricep, holding on to him as they drifted off to sleep together.

* * *

John jerked awake, the slam of a door opening still ringing in his ears. Heart pounding, he stared at Rodney, looking for any sign of possession, any glimmer that something had taken hold of him once again. But Rodney slept blithely on, lips parted slightly, fingers still curled in John's shirt.

Carefully, John drew back and rolled over. It took him a long moment to work through the pain and stiffness enough so he could sit up to look over the rest of the apartment.

Adrenaline got him onto his feet. Halfway across the room, Cardinal Houseman and Fathers Dario and Derning stood gawking at him. At them.

"Michael?"

"We've come to help," Michael announced, as imperious as ever. He waved Derning forward, then gestured to the bed. "Take him to the Archdiocese straight away."

John stepped back, instinctively moving to protect Rodney. As soon as he realized what he was doing he stopped, turning to gently shake Rodney awake instead.

"You've got visitors," he said as soon as Rodney's eyelids snapped open. A smile curved across Rodney's lips. John shook his head in warning. Rodney sat up, and John shifted to the side so he could see.

"What the--" Rodney cut off. He looked at John, eyes wide and worried, and John shook his head again.

"This is Cardinal Houseman and Father Dario," he said, though neither man bothered to acknowledge Rodney. They were both staring at the recently-painted back wall.

"And you remember Father Derning." At least Derning smiled, though he looked incredibly uncomfortable as he approached.

"Of course," Rodney said faintly, then he seemed to regain some of his fire. "Not brain-damaged, remember?"

"Right." John smiled back at Derning. He hoped it was a smile, anyway; it felt more like he was baring his teeth. "Let's get you packed, Dr. McKay."

"What? Why?"

John turned back to Rodney, lifting his eyebrows, hoping that Rodney would use his smarts to interpret John's need. "We can help you out better at the church. This place is a wreck, anyway." He glanced around, then added quietly, "Just go with it, okay?"

Rodney shut his mouth, looking over to the others as well. He probably thought he did it subtly. "They'd better have good food," he muttered. "And coffee. I definitely need coffee."

John nodded absently as Rodney started rattling off instructions for what he wanted gathered. Michael was still staring at that damn wall, Dario fluttering at his side with a folder of papers in hand. John slung Rodney's bag over one shoulder, then got an arm under Rodney on one side, Derning taking the other.

"John, wait." Michael's voice stopped them at the door.

Rodney shot John a worried look. John squeezed his shoulder, then turned back towards Michael.

"Father Dario, would you please assist Dr. McKay," Michael said, and then Dario was in John's face, sliding in to take his place under Rodney's shoulder. To lead Rodney away.

John closed the door behind them and turned back to Michael. "Yes?"

Michael held up a sheet of paper, dark with a printed photograph. John stepped closer, his gut sinking as he recognized the fax. "Where did you get this? What does it mean?"

"McKay wrote it." John shrugged. "I don't know what it means, and neither does he."

"It was on this wall, wasn't it? Why was it painted over? What language is it?"

John blinked, shocked at Michael's rapid-fire interrogation. "It's Aramaic--"

Michael slipped his glasses off his nose to peer at John. "How do you know that?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" John put his hands on his hips, ready to ask some questions of his own.

"What I don't understand," Michael plowed over him, "is why you would send this to anyone other than me. What are you hiding from me?"

"I'm not hiding anything." John sighed, pushing down his defensive instincts. "All I know is that McKay is fighting for his life. If he receives another wound, he's going to die. Unless we help him."

Michael slipped the fax back into the folder he held, then tapped the edge of it against his hand. "I'm taking over this case. Go back to Father Derning's, get some rest--"

"I'm not leaving McKay alone," John broke in, surprise and desperation taking the heat out of his words.

"You're not leaving him alone," Michael replied calmly. "You're leaving him in the care of the Sisters--"

"You know what? You sent me here. I didn't want to come here, but I did, and I'm doing what you sent me to do." John spun on his heel, searching the mess on the floor for any sign of his bag. It took him a minute to remember he hadn't brought it this time. He headed towards the door, prepared to storm out, but concern for Rodney had him turning back. "McKay's not up to taking on you or the Church right now, okay?"

"What are you talking about, John? This isn't about him taking on anything." Michael looked so concerned, so sympathetic, that John could almost believe him.

John rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Why are you so concerned about those photographs? Why are they more important to you than a man bleeding to death?"

Sympathy hardened into disapproval. "What's happened to you, John? Where's your loyalty?"

John snorted. "Loyalty, Michael? Don't lecture _me_ about loyalty."

Glass crunched underfoot as Michael stepped forward, leaning into John's space. "The only reason you've been tolerated by the Congregation this long is because you were a good scientist. Because of your objectivity. But you've lost that. The last thing I expected to see when I walked in here was the two of you lying in bed together--"

"Oh, come on! That was totally innocent!"

"I know you think you're helping him." Michael softened his voice, turning cajoling instead of cutting. "But you're not. If anything, he's getting worse. You're exhausted. You're hurting, I can see that. Go to Father Derning's, get some rest, and we'll talk more tomorrow."

John stared at Michael for a long moment until his anger faded enough for him to think straight. He nodded, grudgingly acknowledged Michael's point. "Fine. But why are you so concerned about those photographs?"

"Brother Delmonico showed them to us. He seemed to think they were important."

John tried to keep the suspicion off of his face. Gianni wouldn't have volunteered the pictures, but accusations wouldn't get John any further in whatever game Michael was playing. "What do they mean?"

Michael smiled tightly. "We have no idea. But we're working on it."

John pressed on, knowing in his gut that Michael knew more than that. "Do they have anything to do with the Gospel Commission?"

Michael folded his glasses and slipped them into his pocket. "We don't know. Good night, John."

He stepped around John and was out the door without a backward glance. John looked around Rodney's empty, shattered apartment, wondering what the fuck was going to happen next. Wondering what the fuck he was supposed to do to help Rodney.

* * *

The smell of polished wood and burning candle wax, the lingering muskiness of incense, something else that hit him high in the sinuses and always said _church_ to his hindbrain--those never changed, no matter where the church was. John loved the smell, and hated it, the familiarity of it deeply, viscerally soothing, yet strangling all at the same time.

He pressed his forehead to the back of his hands, the chill of the wooden pew seeping up through his palms. He'd given up on proper forms and carefully composed supplications what felt like hours ago. Now, the only words in his head were _please, God_ and _Rodney_.

Footsteps echoed across the nave. John looked up. An older man stopped in the aisle next to John, his eyes glittering darkly over his grey-bearded mouth. He was wearing street clothes, yet he seemed at home in the church.

"John Sheppard?"

John moved back, sliding from kneeling to sitting on the edge of the pew bench. "I'm Sheppard."

"I am Petrocelli." He didn't offer his hand. "I want to see Alameida."

John shook his head slowly. "I don't know any Alameida."

Petrocelli slipped into the pew and sat down next to John. He pulled a paper out of his jacket and handed it over. "Delmonico sent me this copy of his document."

John took the fax, having a mean-spirited moment of wondering if there was anyone Gianni hadn't sent the pictures to. "Do you know what it is?"

Dark eyes held him for a long moment, weighing. "It's perhaps the most significant Christian relic ever found."

That was close to what Gianni'd said. John shook his head. He felt like he was being led around by the nose, like some little kid who kept being told he wasn't old enough. "Why?"

"It's an Aramaic scroll from the first century, discovered near the cave of the dead sea scrolls outside Jerusalem. Alameida and I concluded that it is a gospel of Jesus Christ. In his own words: Aramaic. There are some from the Vatican who believe that this document could destroy the authority of the modern church."

"Destroy? How?"

Age-puffed hands slipped the fax out of John's loose grasp. "It was Jesus' words to his disciples on the night of his Last Supper. His instructions to them on how to continue his church after his death."

"Okay. Why would that be so threatening?"

"When we gave our initial conclusion to the gospel commission, Houseman ordered us to stop our work immediately. Alameida refused. He stole the document and disappeared. Houseman excommunicated us in our absence."

John bit his lip, thinking. "You have no idea where he is?"

"He didn't want to be found until he finished the translation." Petrocelli reached into his jacket again, pulling out a photograph. "Me, Delmonico, and Alameida. We were all translating the new gospel together."

John took the picture. "I've seen this man. Three weeks ago in Brazil."

"Yes?"

John shook his head. "He's dead. I stood over his coffin in the church in Belo Quinto. I'm sorry."

Petrocelli sighed, his earlier intensity leaking away. "Then it is lost forever."

"Why was your work stopped?" John asked, still curious. "What was so threatening about this gospel?"

Petrocelli stood, pacing a few steps towards the altar, then turned back, stretching his arms wide. "Look around, Father. What do you see?"

John shrugged. "A church."

He shook his head. "It is only a building. The true church of Jesus Christ is so much more. Not in buildings made of wood and stone. I love Jesus," Petrocelli thumped his palm against his chest. "I don't need an institution between him and me. You see, just God." He waved to the large gilt crucifix above the altar. John swallowed, his eyes drawn to the wound in Christ's side.

"No priest, no churches," he continued. "The first words in Jesus' gospel are: _The kingdom of God is inside you. And all around you. Not in buildings made from wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift a stone..._ "

"And I am there," John finished, comprehension chilling him. He looked down at the photo he was still holding. "Why is Father Alameida wearing gloves?"

Petrocelli took the picture back, his thumb swiping across the crinkled corner. "Alameida was a tormented man. A holy man. A very holy man. He wore the gloves to cover the marks of the stigmata."

"McKay's just his messenger," John said as all of the pieces tumbled into place. "He's still trying to be heard."

"Houseman will never let this gospel out," Petrocelli warned.

But John was already moving.

* * *

Rodney woke alone.

He wasn't expecting otherwise, but he'd drifted off to sleep remembering John's hands on his face, the press of John's forehead against his own, their breath wrapping together and warming the space between them. Late evening sunlight trailed over the comforter piled on top of him, but neither was as warming as John had been.

Rodney rolled to his side, searching for a clock. His mouth tasted like shit, dry to the point that he had to work to open it, and he could feel crusted matter at the corners of his eyes. At least he wasn't covered in dried blood anymore--though the phrase _sponge bath_ would forever be ruined for him, thanks to the nuns who'd taken care of him before he'd passed out.

He didn't see a clock on the nightstand, but the rosary Jeannie had sent him was sitting next to a box of tissues. John had been holding it the last time Rodney'd seen it. Rodney picked it up, running it over his palm, rolling the smooth beads between his fingers.

The door to the room opened. Two of the sisters who'd gotten overly acquainted with him earlier entered the room, two priests behind them. The cardinal and the other one who'd barged into his apartment with Derning earlier.

"Oh, hey, hi," Rodney said as the two women stopped on either side of the bed. "Do you think I could get some coffee? And food would be good, I don't remember the last time I ate--"

The nuns ignored him. Instead, they each grabbed one of his wrists in a double-fisted grip.

"What are you doing--ow! Careful, I'm wounded here." He pushed back, gently, but they didn't ease up, not even to lessen the pressure on his cuts. "Let me go!"

"Lord, do not remember our sins. Or those of our forefathers..."

Rodney glanced over, distracted from his struggles as the cardinal--Houseman, he remembered--began reading from the white leather Bible he held in front of him.

"Where's John?" Rodney pushed again, a little more strongly, starting to get really freaked out. The nuns held firmly, leverage and his own exhaustion on their side. "What are you doing?"

"Do not punish us for our offenses," the other priest started, the other D-named one, the one with the strong Italian accent. Rodney'd thought that guy was okay. This, though, this was far from okay.

"Lead us not into temptation," Houseman continued, and Rodney had enough. Putting all of his effort into it, he sat up, dragging the women still clinging to him off balance. It was a short victory, however, as _something_ convulsed through his body, dragging him back to the sheets.

Rodney fought it, and it fought back. Harsh grunts and cries poured out of his mouth, but he wasn't sure if the sounds came from him or the something else. He could hear the priests' words, but they were like acid in his ears, scalding his brain.

"By the power of Christ I command you! Come out of that body, now and for always!"

Everything stilled.

Rodney rolled, staring Houseman straight in the eyes. The voice that poured out of him was not his own, but he let it come. "You are blind men! Your eyes are open, but you see nothing!"

Houseman took a step back. Rodney would have smiled, but he didn't have control of his face. Another shudder thrashed through his body, and Houseman recovered himself.

"Give him heavenly protection--"

Rodney screamed, tossing the nuns to the floor as he sat up. "Behold! Your devil dripping with blood!"

Houseman stepped forward. "Embrace me, my child. I am the Church!"

Rodney's lips curled in a snarl. "You are the true enemy of the Church, Houseman."

Rage twisted across Houseman's face, his eyes narrow as he glared back. "Get out," he spat. He grabbed the nun next to him when she didn't move, pushing her towards the door. "Get out, all of you!"

The nuns scurried away, leaving Rodney writhing on the bed without a backward glance. The other priest hesitated, but Houseman flapped his hands. "Out! Get out," Houseman yelled again, and the priest finally fled.

Houseman stepped closer, scarlet cloth brushing against Rodney's forearm. "Save this man, Lord, and let the enemy have no victory over him!"

Rodney cried out, the sound doubled and tripled, as Houseman knelt on the mattress and wrapped his fingers around Rodney's throat. Rodney clawed at Houseman's hands, but whatever supernatural strength he'd had before left him at the worst possible moment. _Hypoxia_ , he thought with black amusement, and then passed out.

* * *

John raced up the stairs at full tilt, nearly bowling over a pair of startled sisters on the first landing. Taking a second to get his bearings, he spotted Father Dario pacing in front of a closed door.

"Where's McKay?" John shouted, heading straight for the door. "Is he in here?"

"No, you cannot go in there," Dario said, trying to get in John's way. "The cardinal is performing the exorcism--"

John shoved Dario aside and slammed through the door.

He couldn't believe what he saw. "Get off him!" John grabbed Michael's shoulder and yanked, rage and fear giving him the strength to shove him across the room. Rodney took a huge gasping breath, and John turned back to him. First brushing his fingers across the bruises on his throat, John cupped the back of Rodney's head, trying to help him find a more comfortable position.

"John, get away from him," Michael yelled, grabbing at John's arm. "You don't even know what's going on!"

John rounded on him, shoving Michael back with both hands. "You lied to me!" He kept shoving, getting Michael away from Rodney. "You tried to silence him and you lied to me!"

One last shove had them safely out of the room. Dario hovered nearby, uncertain, but John ignored him.

"You tried to kill him!" John shoved Michael into the wall behind them, satisfaction curling through his stomach as Michael's head hit the plaster with a solid crack. He stepped closer, curling his fingers into the front of Michael's cassock.

"I know everything," he growled, tamping down the urge to smack Michael into the wall again. "I know why you closed down the Gospel Commission. I know why you had Petrocelli and Alameida excommunicated. I know all those lies you've been telling for years! There is no way you'll get away with what you did to McKay!"

"I will not let you destroy the Church," Michael gasped out.

John shook his head and shoved. "You're so full of it. I promise you, your days in the Church are through."

Michael sagged, only the wall and John's grip holding him up. John let go, disgusted, and raced back to Rodney.

John staggered at the sight that met him when he opened the door. Rodney was sitting up in bed, blood tears streaming from his eyes, shadows dancing over his face as huge flames licked across the ceiling.

The entire ceiling. On. Fire.

Panic surged, and John fought it, trying to figure out what he needed to do. He took a step into the room, and it sank in that the flame wasn't burning, that it wasn't hot at all.

Taking another cautious step, John looked at Rodney, seeing the way his eyes moved to track John a moment after his head turned, the way his body seemed unnaturally slack as he sat.

"Are you Father Alameida?" John asked, his earlier certainty undercut by the freakiness of the situation.

With a loud whoosh, flames gushed from the ceiling and wrapped around the bed. John fought the instinct to back up, instead taking that sign as confirmation.

He held out his hand, imploring. "Give _me_ your wisdom. Leave him alone."

The flames leapt again, surrounding Rodney on the bed, surging out across the floor towards John.

"The messenger believes," Alameida said, just a whisper of Rodney's natural voice touching the words. "The messenger has faith. You have only doubt."

John clenched his jaw, familiar whispers of failure and uncertainty stirring in the back of his head like a snake uncoiling in the sun. He stepped closer to the bed, the flickering flames taunting him from his peripheral vision.

"Jesus said, _The Kingdom of God is inside you._ " This time, Rodney's voice was stronger, carrying Alameida's words across the roar of the flames like he was speaking them himself. " _And all around you. Not in mansions of wood and stone. Split a piece of wood and I am there._ "

John reached the edge of the bed. Rodney looked up, but his eyes didn't focus on John.

"Lift a stone," Rodney finished, "and you will find me."

A second later, Rodney screamed, convulsing on the bed as blood bloomed on his wrists. John could have sworn that he saw a hammer drive a nail into Rodney's flesh.

"Father Alameida, I call upon you to release this man," John said, forcing the words out as Rodney writhed. "Give him grace and let him not come into the ways of harm."

Blood sprang from Rodney's forehead, thorns ringing the crown of his head for an eyeblink.

Heart thumping in his chest, John reached for the power that had to be there, laying himself open. "God bless your soul, Father Alameida. And go in peace." He made the sign of the cross--and believed.

Rodney cried out, convulsing once more, then fell back to the bed, limp. The flames were still raging, but the roaring changed, becoming more real somehow, distant sounds of crackling reaching John's ears. Sweat prickling on his neck, John levered Rodney's torso up and over his shoulder. He staggered into a fireman's carry, making for the door with as much haste as he could manage.

The hall was empty. John eased Rodney off his back, but a huge crack came from the bedroom. He glanced back, seeing the bed collapse into a mass of fire. There was no time to rest. As he got Rodney settled again, something clacked as it hit the floor.

John left the rosary to burn.

Sirens were echoing in the distance by the time John finally got them out to the gardens. He eased Rodney onto one of the stone benches, then collapsed beside him, exhausted and still scared. His hands shook a little as he slid his fingers down Rodney's neck, searching for a pulse.

"Thank you, God," he gasped, bowing his head from the strength of his relief. He moved his hand up, welcoming the feathery touch of Rodney's breath on his hand. Holding Rodney to him, John sat, watching the sunset color the clear sky overhead.

Rodney stirred when the first cool breezes brought the scent of smoke into the garden.

"Hey," John called as Rodney's eyelids fluttered, "you with me?"

"John?"

"I'm here," he said. Rodney opened his eyes fully, staring at John with hope and need. John bent his head, brushing a kiss over Rodney's chapped lips. Rodney whimpered and pulled him closer.

When they broke apart, Rodney smiled, his dimples twitching. "You better not be this high-maintenance all the time."

John snorted. "Me? I'm the one with the sprained back from carting your ass all over."

Rodney chuckled, pushing in closer, warming them both.

* * *

_Belo Quinto, Brazil_

The church was silent now, no gathering multitudes seeking blessings and affirmations of faith. The statue of the Virgin was quiescent, her blood tears long dried. No one stopped John as he circled the altar, searching for some sign.

A small woven rug drew his eye. Lifting it up, he saw a board that fit poorly next to the others in the floor. John got a fingernail under the edge, prying carefully until he could get his whole finger under the plank.

"I found some great jewelry at one of the stalls. Or, well, it was cheap, anyway. Teyla and Elizabeth should at least appreciate the effort." John looked up; Rodney had stopped next to the statue and was staring at the floor in front of John. "You found it?" he asked excitedly.

John reached into the hole and pulled out what he found: a carefully wrapped bundle of parchment and a small leather journal. "I found it."

He grinned at Rodney, and Rodney grinned back.

END


End file.
